October 16 - On the Otaku Question?

Edit: This was written before I had a chance to look at the two Akihabara articles; the 'Galbraith piece' refers to the article on Moe.

The readings, taken together, offer a fascinating implicit conclusion about the Otaku culture. It may be read that the Otaku is a sort of 'ghetto identity', a group identifiable chiefly through its exclusion from broader society, with Akihabara as the ghetto without walls. Azuma, for instance, cannot help but condemn the Otaku as 'animals', albeit as in the Hegelian sense. The method of condemnation is not so important as the condemnation itself, so far as it ascribes to the Otaku a unique (and superficial) method of consuming culture. The Freedman article provides insight into the degree of separation: the Otaku can achieve mainstream acceptance, but only so long as they forgo their origins and 'graduate', as with the 'Train Man', into an image of conventional masculinity. Then there is the identification of Otaku as 'dame' in the Okada and Morikawa interview, supposedly without a 'negative' connotation.

Additionally, as demonstrated by Freedman and Gailbraith, the Okatu self-identify as being unacceptable to the mainstream. Gailbraith describes one of his interviewees as considering himself “excluded from the market of love”. Similarly, Freedman explains how the 'train-man' had exchanged goodbyes with his former 2chan comrades upon achieving romantic success, implying that his apparent entry into the mainstream had disqualified him to hold the Otaku identity.

What does this then imply about the concept of Moe? Perhaps that Otaku, having considered themselves ineligible for standard relationships, are looking for a sort of 'disarmed' femininity. Behind the infatuation with youth and virtue lies an abject terror of the mature and worldly. It may be more productive to examine the escapist and fantasy elements of the Otaku culture, than to subscribe to the idea that the subculture represents an expression of postmodernism.

An additional note on the Galbraith piece:

Certain parts of Galbraith's argument seem somewhat questionable. His statement that cosplay serves to allow the participant to 'become the image' appears, especially now that the practice has become firmly entrenched in the West, rather ridiculous. It ignores the much more significant social role of costuming, particularly in asserting group membership in a particular subculture; the ubiquitous cosplay in public at Comiket and Comic-con support the idea that this is a social, rather than individual phenomenon.

Furthermore, his examination of Moe is complicated by certain counter-examples. The sub-genre of Yandere, for example, involves characters who have an outwardly Moe appearance, but whose affection eventually manifests an obsessive, often homicidal interest (the most direct analogue in the West being the antagonist from the Steven King book and 1990 film Misery). The sub-genre may be seen exaggerating typical Moe traits to the point of self-parody, suggesting the Otaku have a greater degree of self-consciousness than they are given credit for.