kurzweil1024 comments

@tkoind2:

So where is this great wealth of creativity? Do most Otaku contribute to the knowledge and development of humanity? Do they contribute to the betterment of others. Do they provide a foundation for Japan's economic future? Could they survive once Mom or Dad cut off the funding? And if so, will that survival be adequate to even sustain Otaku culture? "I selected “otaku” because I believed they might become the intellectuals of the next generation." I just don't see where this guy gets this idea. Based upon what? Real intellectuals are engaged in the world. They are exploring science, philosophy, political and social sciences, creating the arts or somehow contributing. The next Einstein will not be some maid cafe guy. It will be someone who is devoted to learning about and exploring the real world of science and not wasting time on obsessive hobbies.

You took the article out of context and lunged upon it like a lion of commonsense above rudimentary fallacy. If it was such an obvious mistake, then why argue with an idiot? You love expressing your superiority?

It is true that the collective loosely referred to by the term "otaku" are degenerates as you said, but Hiroki Azuma is referring to otaku culture as a significant global industry that has enchanted the majority of the minds of the youth around the world and has, by cumulative advantage, attracted the greatest of artistic, musical, literary, and intellectual talents. The "patient zero" of this phenomenon is Hideaki Anno's Neon Genesis Evangelion -- and Hiroki Azuma was referring to otakus like Anno and the rest of the Gainax staff who moved this rising culture to new heights.

Knowledge now throbs through the veins of new media -- from quantum chromodynamics lectures in podcasts to the essence of "Bushido: Soul of Japan" in the contagious form of manga in Vagabond. If you want to hear great music, your best bet is from anime and videogame composers and so on.

It is unfair and ignorant to say that otaku is merely a socio-economic demographic -- it would be more accurate to refer to the quality of the "products" themselves. Whether they are losers or not, they are no different from a "curator of modern art" who "consumes" an entire library of "avant-garde art of the 1950's".

The influence of otaku products are mindblowing. The highest revenue-generating events in cities in the United States each year are all from Anime conventions!

And from the entire popular culture, only the anime Stand Alone Complex was able to predict and analyze contemporary modern Internet phenomena years before they happened, such as 4chan's memetic Anonymous and the Wikileaks cyberterrorist Assange. Stand Alone Complex was based on Yoshiki Sakurai's media ecology dissertation -- the inherent economy of expression in animation allows for the intersection of academia and high arts with popular culture. Anime producers don't have to worry about risky artistic freedom, as opposed to expensive Hollywood productions.

And as for belittling those who "consume" such products, I have to inform you that the people responsible for the dissemination of anime culture to an international audience, the Japanese-to-English translators of anime and manga mostly come from circles within American academia. Many are students from technology institutes such as MIT and Caltech, a few from Cornell, Berkley, VT and so on. We are simply drawn by the passion for "otherness"/"weirdness" of the otaku culture, just as the cultural elites of the 18th century western world were fascinated by "orientalism". And believe it or not, animation technology runs parallel with visualization technologies in all of science. I, for one, am applying fluid dynamics to computer rendering for both scientific and artistic ends.

"Obsessive hobbies"/"addictions" are applicable to anyone. The world has changed. The top students in class (at least here in America) are almost always nerdmad about anime.

Open your mind. Look out the window. The world has changed, old man.