[Click here to read an interview with Toshio Okada.]



Article title: Anime Culture Is Way Cool! America's Japanophile Otaku

From Aera magazine, October 2, 1995, pages 43-44.



Ah-nee-may. That's how otaku in America seem to pronounce the word referring to Japanese anime. A special guest at an "Otaku convention" reports the very latest dirt on American otaku.



"Why the heck wasn't I born in Japan. Being American bites. I wish I was Japanese," muttered a high school student who claims both his parents belong to a white supremacist group. Around the con similar expressions were to be heard time and again.



"Otakon," held this year for four days beginning September 2 in State College, Pennsylvania, is an international gathering for fans of Japanese anime and manga. The true title is "Convention for the Otaku Generation," with the word "otaku" being the same as our Japanese word "otaku."



It was around the beginning of August when an email message asking me to appear as a special guest at the strangely-named convention arrived. The invitation showed evidence that my present position as a university lecturer, the fact that I'd been tossed out of an Osaka university after three days, and I had made the feature film Wings of Honneamise , NHK's Fushigi no Umi no Nadia , and games and anime of an otaku-bent had all been gleaned from a detailed profile on me. The investigative abilities of otaku are frightening.



Having replied that I wished to attend, half a day later on the Internet's Otakon home page there was my name, big as life -- "The Otaking is coming." That's "Otaking" as in Otaku-king, which is to say, "king of all otaku." Originally in the trade and in fannish circles, I'd been called that half out of respect and half in jest.



Otaku and Proud of It

In Japan, the word "otaku" is always dogged by a negative image. However, that common sense doesn't hold true for the US. On the scene there, I realized that. You see, their infatuation with Japan and pride at being otaku is the real deal.



The con was a sea of Japanese anime, from series set for broadcast nationwide this fall like Sailor Moon and Dragonball to minor videos which even in Japan no one but our own homegrown otaku would know about. During the con, there were 24-hour straight anime showings, symposia, panel discussions, events, autograph sessions, and a dealer's room.



As far as serious meetings go, a "Katakana Workshop" was held for purposes of understanding Japanese anime, with dozens of Americans repeating "A-I-U..." in unison. "Katakana is really cool," said 35-year-old Carl Horn, who came over from Long Beach, California. He showed me a dog-eared Japanese dictionary. Manga and anime imported from Japan are being sold still in the plastic bags. To read the writing on the cover, he's trying desperately to learn Japanese.



And that's not all. For example, take one of the Sailor Moon characters, Sailor Mars, whose background happens to be that she's the daughter of a Shinto priest. Consequently, "jinja," "kannushi," and "shinto" become an indispensable part of American otaku's knowledge. In this manner, their interest spreads across Japanese culture as a whole. A panel entitled "Japanese Legends and Myths" was also a success.



A Hundred Times More Anime Fans

Via email, Lorraines [sic] Savage supervises the anime fan club "Anime Hasshin!" bringing together 200 members in 10 countries. The "hasshin" part is taken from the line, "Yamato hasshin" when Space Cruiser Yamato rises. She's been an otaku for 10 years.



"My office is plastered with Ranma 1/2 posters and such. When someone first comes in they go, 'What's that?' I give them a 'brain-washing video.' And then they always get hooked, and there's one more otaku." [See my note at the end!]



One of the pioneers of introducing Japanese anime to America, 34-year-old Studio Proteus head Toren Smith, explains that the number of Americans seeking anime and manga in the past five years has increased a hundred-fold.



The reason is that a cable station specializes in science fiction. The Sci-Fi Channel started doing special showings of Japanese anime once every two weeks, giving more people a chance to be exposed to the works. An increase in the number of video rental shops with a corner specializing in Japanese anime also figures largely into it.



And when the passively watching "viewer" rises to the level of otaku, dubbed versions are no longer enough. The work of putting subtitles on Japanese video for sale is becoming big business.



Exchange Students as Cultural Evangelists

Robert Woodhead, the 34-year-old president of one such company, AnimEigo (a fusion of "anime" and "eigo"), is also known as creator of the world's first computer game, Wizardry. According to him, among American fans there are a hundred thousand otaku for whom "it's the Japanese voice actor or nothing."



Incidentally, the way he got on this particular path was through a college anime club. The founding members were foreign exchange students from places like Taiwan and Hong Kong. Baptized as they were in their youth by satellite broadcasts and pirated versions of Japanese anime, amazing as it seems they were to become the evangelists of otaku culture. America already had Disney animation and a tradition of comics, but they had a strong image as being strictly for kids. However, in Japan at some point, animation had headed off in a separate direction.



Visual expressions never before seen. Beautiful pictures. Complex stories. Masterful performances. And the distinctive personalities of each member of the cast of characters. Animation was thought to be cheap, but it was an art which had risen to a level worthy of the appreciation of adults. To Americans, with their love of new things, it looked really cool. And so the people, things, and cities appearing in Japanese anime became their new image of Japan. This was spreading not the customary exoticism, but cyber and pop Japanese culture.



For all that, why on earth have otaku caught on in America? For the first time in 150 years, Japanese culture, together with its creators, were appreciated overseas, and could it not be said that that in itself was a fascinating development.



Admiration for Their Second Hometown

Mention Japanese culture and it used to mean samurai, zen, and geisha. But nothing relating to the most fundamental personages has been transmitted. Ukiyoe, however, was a different matter. The names of makers such as Utamaro, Hiroshige, Hokusai, and Sharaku came to be remembered along with the individual character of their respective styles, and they had an immense influence on the vanguard of contemporary European artists.



By the same token, any American otaku would recognize the name Takahashi Rumiko and Miyazaki Hayao. What's interesting is the fact that both Ukiyoe and anime were viewed in their time as low level artforms for girls. You see, it seems that, for whatever reason, the Japanese culture which circulates out into the world comes from the outer fringes.



Forty-year-old Bill Wold, whose own hometown of Detroit prides itself on nothing more than "Motown," told me, "I want to go to Japan."



Of course he wants to buy anime and manga, but he says he'd also like to actually walk the streets of the city appearing in so much anime -- the Tokyo-Azabu Juhan where Sailor Moon is set, from the Shibuya where the characters in Megazone 23 ran amok on their bikes, to Kichijou-ji Shrine -- and see sailor-suited and uniformed junior and senior high school kids on their way to school.



To them, the Japan they've learned about through anime is probably like a second hometown. It reminded me of myself when I was younger and infatuated with the United States of America. "Land of freedom, science, and democracy."



Photo captions:

(Picture of Anime UK magazine) British anime magazine. Trendy use of katakana?



(Dojinshi by Antarctic Press) "Dojinshi" has also come into usage in English as is. American otaku envy the depth of Japan's amateur ranks.



( Dirty Pair comic) There are Japanese anime influences in American comics. The sudden appearance of kanji devoid of context is unsettling.



(Otakon reception desk) Greeted by Lum, the heroine of Rumiko Takahashi's Urusei Yatsura .



(Male masquerade contestant wearing a sailor suit) Sailor suits have forever earned a place in the hearts of American otaku.



(Costumed attendee dressed as Captain Avatar/Okita from Yamato ) The well-known Captain Okita from Space Cruiser Yamato . It really suits him quite well.



Note from Lorraine Savage:

Wow, do these two paragraphs about me need a lot of correction! Perhaps I didn't enunciate, and the language barrier made what I actually told Okada become misinterpreted. 1) I did not have email with which to run the club at the time this article was written. 2) He spelled my first name wrong (despite the business card I gave him). 3) Anime Hasshin has 400 not 200 members. 4) I took "hasshin" from Captain Harlock , not Yamato . 5) I do not have Ranma 1/2 posters in my office -- they're all Vampire Miyu ! 6) What is true is that I loaned some Ranma episodes to a co-worker who, after watching them, thought they were only OK. He wasn't "brainwashed." Finally, at least Okada didn't criticize my katakana class!



This level of inaccuracy makes me wonder what else in Okada's article is incorrect or exaggerated. Perhaps popularity of Rumiko Takahashi and her Ranma series is a self-fulfilling condition, considering Okada's error about my supposed Ranma posters. Nevertheless, it was a hoot to see my name and Anime Hasshin's in a Japanese magazine. We're famous (infamous) now!