What is an "Otaku"?

Otaku roughly translates to "Obsessive Fan" in Japanese. But in the world of Anime, it means "Anime Freak". The Otaku sub-culture is not just limited to the normal geeks and freaks that most things like scifi and fantasy are limited to. An Otaku can be anyone. That Popular girl you sit next to in Chemistry, or your 45 year old next door neighboor. It could be your world cultures teacher, or the weird guy that is sitting next to you on the train. Now earlier I mentioned Otaku as a "sub-culture", and this is pretty accurate. For the most part, Otaku stick together. They hang out on weekends, they attend weekly Anime Club meetings, And chat on the net. The way I see it, there are three types of people in this world. "The clueless", these are your standard citizens. They constitute the majority of the people on Earth. These are the Idiots you see on a day to day basis. The second kind of People are "The Tolerated" These are the people who refer to anime as "Japanimation", as the others do, "The Tolerated" have more of a clue, so you resist the urge to back hand them into next week. They watch a little here and there. Or like just one series. Or watch DBZ so they think they are up in there (No offense to DBZ fans, I am a huge fan myself, but you know, its mainstream). Then there are the Otaku. The people for who this site is dedicated to. Otaku can be found in a crowd quite easily. Simply yell out with as much passion as you can "TETSUO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", and in a few seconds you will get a reply, "KANEDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". And you will have just made a friend. Because any self respecting Otaku knows this reference well from the movie "Akira". And us Otaku stick together!

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