Adele's Corner - Otaku Page

The are many people who will immediately recognize the word "Otaku", but then again there are many people who will not Let me try and explain as best as I can.

What is Otaku? | What is Anime? | What is Manga?

WHAT IS OTAKU?

Pronunciation: oh-TAH-koo

As an honorific second-person pronoun

Otaku is derived from a Japanese term for another's house or family (お宅, otaku) that is also used as an honorific second-person pronoun. The modern slang form, which is distinguished from the older usage by being written only in hiragana (おたく) or katakana (オタク or, less frequently, ヲタク), or rarely in rōmaji, appeared in the 1980s. In the anime Macross, first aired in 1982, the term was used by Lynn Minmay as an honorific term. It appears to have been coined by the humorist and essayist Akio Nakamori in his 1983 series An Investigation of "Otaku" (『おたく』の研究, "Otaku" no Kenkyū), printed in the lolicon magazine Manga Burikko. Animators like Haruhiko Mikimoto and Shōji Kawamori used the term among themselves as an honorific second-person pronoun since the late 1970s.

In Japan

In modern Japanese slang, the term otaku refers to a fan of any particular theme, topic, or hobby. Common uses are anime otaku (a fan of anime), cosplay otaku and manga otaku (a fan of Japanese comic books), pasokon otaku (personal computer geeks), gēmu otaku (playing video games), and wota (pronounced 'ota', previously referred to as "idol otaku") that are extreme fans of idols, heavily promoted singing girls.

While these are the most common uses, the word can be applied to anything (music otaku, martial arts otaku, cooking otaku, etc).

In English and internationally

The term is a loanword from the Japanese language. In English, it is usually used to refer to an obsessive fan of anime/manga and/or Japanese culture generally, and to a lesser extent Japanese video games.
The term serves as a label similar to Trekkie or fanboy/fangirl.

As Japanese anime and manga has become increasingly popular around the world, male and female fans of all ages have adopted the word otaku as the preferred way to refer to themselves as fans of Japanese Anime or Manga.

Read more about the term Oaku here

WHAT IS ANIME?

Pronunciation: a-ni-may

Anime (アニメ, an abbreviated pronunciation in Japanese of "animation", is animation originating in Japan. The world outside Japan regards anime as "Japanese animation". Anime originated about 1917 - a two minute clip of a samurai trying to test a new sword on his target, only to suffer defeat.

Anime, like manga (Japanese comics), has a large audience in Japan and high recognition throughout the world. Distributors can release anime via television broadcasts, directly to video, or theatrically, as well as online.

Both hand-drawn and computer-animated anime exist. It is used in television series, films, video, video games, commercials, and internet-based releases, and represents most, if not all, genres of fiction. Anime, popular in eastern Asian countries such as Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singaporehas also become widespread in countries in the Western World such as United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Norway, Russia, and Sweden.

Visual Characteristics

Many commentators refer to anime as an art form. As a visual medium, it naturally places a large emphasis on visual styles. The styles can vary from artist to artist or by studio to studio. Some titles make extensive use of common stylization: FLCL, for example, is known for its wild, exaggerated stylization. In contrast, titles such as Only Yesterday or Jin-Roh take much more realistic approaches, featuring few stylistic exaggerations.

While different titles and different artists have their own artistic styles, many stylistic elements have become so common that people describe them as definitive of anime in general. However, this does not mean that all modern anime share one strict, common art style. Many anime have a very different art style from what would commonly be called "anime style", yet fans still use the word "anime" to refer to these titles. Generally, the most common form of anime drawings are "exaggerated physical features such as large eyes, big hair and elongated limbs... and dramatically shaped speech bubbles, speed lines and onomatopoeic, exclamatory typography."

The influences of Japanese calligraphy and Japanese painting also characterize linear qualities of the anime style. The round Ink brush traditionally used for writing Kanji and for painting produces a stroke of widely varying thickness.

Anime also tends to borrow many elements from manga, including text in the background, and borrowing panel layouts from the manga as well. For example, an opening may employ manga panels to tell the story, or to dramatize a point for humorous effect. See for example the well-known anime Kare Kano.

Read more about anime here.

WHAT IS MANGA?

Manga (in kanji 漫画; in hiragana まんが; in katakana マンガ) consist of comics and print cartoons (sometimes also called komikku コミック), in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 20th century. In their modern form, manga date from shortly after World War II, but they have a long, complex pre-history in earlier Japanese art.

In Japan, people of all ages read manga. The genre includes a broad range of subjects: action-adventure, romance, sports and games, historical drama, comedy, science fiction and fantasy, mystery, horror, sexuality, and business and commerce, among others. Since the 1950s, manga have steadily become a major part of the Japanese publishing industry, representing a 481 billion yen market in Japan in 2006 (approximately $4.4 billion dollars). Manga have also become increasingly popular worldwide. In 2006, the United States manga market was $175–200 million. Manga are typically printed in black-and-white, although some full-color manga exist (e.g. Colorful). In Japan, manga are usually serialized in telephone book-size manga magazines, often containing many stories, each presented in a single episode to be continued in the next issue. If the series is successful, collected chapters may be republished in paperback books called tankōbon. A manga artist (mangaka in Japanese) typically works with a few assistants in a small studio and is associated with a creative editor from a commercial publishing company. If a manga series is popular enough, it may be animated after or even during its run, although sometimes manga are drawn centering on previously existing live-action or animated films (e.g. Star Wars).

"Manga" as a term used outside Japan refers specifically to comics originally published in Japan. However, manga and manga-influenced comics, among original works, exist in other parts of the world, particularly in Taiwan ("manhua"), South Korea ("manhwa"), and the People's Republic of China, notably Hong Kong ("manhua"). In France, "la nouvelle manga" has developed as a form of bande dessinée drawn in styles influenced by Japanese manga. In the U.S., people refer to manga-like comics as Amerimanga, world manga, or original English-language manga (OEL manga).

International Markets

The influence of manga on international cartooning has grown considerably in the last two decades. Influence refers to effects on comics markets outside of Japan and to aesthetic effects on comics artists internationally.

Traditionally, manga are written from top to bottom and right to left, as this is the traditional reading pattern of the Japanese written language. Some publishers of translated manga keep this format, but other publishers flip the pages horizontally, changing the reading direction to left to right, so as not to confuse foreign readers or traditional comics consumers. This practice is known as "flipping". For the most part, the criticisms suggest that flipping goes against the original intentions of the creator (for example, if a person wears a shirt that reads "MAY" on it, and gets flipped, then the word is altered to "YAM").		The reading direction in a traditional manga.
Flipping may also cause oddities with familiar asymmetrical objects or layouts, such as a car being depicted with gas pedal on the left and the brake on the right, or a shirt with the buttons on the wrong side.