NYT has an article about otaku

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Melon
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NYT has an article about otaku

Post by Melon »

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine...mp;pagewanted=1



It's a long article, so I'll only post a snippet.


Nisan didn’t mean to fall in love with Nemutan. Their first encounter — at a comic-book convention that Nisan’s gaming friends dragged him to in Tokyo — was serendipitous. Nisan was wandering aimlessly around the crowded exhibition hall when he suddenly found himself staring into Nemutan’s bright blue eyes. In the beginning, they were just friends. Then, when Nisan got his driver’s license a few months later, he invited Nemutan for a ride around town in his beat-up Toyota. They went to a beach, not far from the home he shares with his parents in a suburb of Tokyo. It was the first of many road trips they would take together. As they got to know each other, they traveled hundreds of miles west — to Kyoto, Osaka and Nara, sleeping in his car or crashing on friends’ couches to save money. They took touristy pictures under cherry trees, frolicked like children on merry-go-rounds and slurped noodles on street corners. Now, after three years together, they are virtually inseparable. “I’ve experienced so many amazing things because of her,” Nisan told me, rubbing Nemutan’s leg warmly. “She has really changed my life.”



Nemutan doesn’t really have a leg. She’s a stuffed pillowcase — a 2-D depiction of a character, Nemu, from an X-rated version of a PC video game called Da Capo, printed on synthetic fabric. In the game, which is less a game than an interactive visual novel about a schoolyard romance, Nemu is the loudmouthed little sister of the main character, whom she calls nisan, or “big brother,” a nickname Nisan adopted as his own when he met Nemu. When I joined the couple for lunch at their favorite all-you-can-eat salad bar in the Tokyo suburb of Hachioji, he insisted on being called only by this new nickname, addressing his body-pillow girlfriend using the suffix “tan” to show how much he adored her. Nemutan is 10, maybe 12 years old and wears a little blue bikini and gold ribbons in her hair. Nisan knows she’s not real, but that hasn’t stopped him from loving her just the same. “Of course she’s my girlfriend,” he said, widening his eyes as if shocked by the question. “I have real feelings for her.”


By the end of the article, I felt sorry for the guy.



I believe he is this wota meme:

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EmEl
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Re: NYT has an article about otaku

Post by EmEl »

The most surprising part was
not long ago he had a real girlfriend, but that she dumped him.
Normally this is the stereotype of someone who can't get a girlfriend.



In any case, this is a clear warning story for how vicious girls mess with our emotions and, uh, cause the spurned ones to become delusional.
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fpd
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Re: NYT has an article about otaku

Post by fpd »

God, I feel really sorry for the guy who probably wasn't thinking the article would be written as a complete bashing of everything he loves. I know it's hard to write an article about something one finds to be so odd and strange without sounding a little disgusted or whatever, but did it really need to be written how it was? Not that I don't find that guy really weird, but it just seems like they probably ambushed the poor guy a little bit.
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AEUGNewtype
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Re: NYT has an article about otaku

Post by AEUGNewtype »

Holy shit....



I didn't know some people take things this far. Weirdly enough, I actually bought a pillowcase from Da Capo at AX <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... #>/sad.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':hahaha:' /> (not of this character, though) This makes me feel bad now. But at least I don't think it's my girlfriend or masturbate on it like this guy must do 1000 times a week. They're very interesting decorations often with high quality artwork, but shouldn't be much more than a novelty. Its weird in the article he says "some people don't think this is funny" almost like this is a big joke. He could just be a really avid collector and put on a show for this news reporter guy (girl?), but I guess we may never know. After reading the whole article, it shows that there's an entire sub-culture of people who have immersed themselves so deep in making up a fantasy world that its unbelievable. How enlightening, thanks for posting.



Also, Petit Melon, based on the meme picture you posted above, it looks like this same guy may have done news stories with a number of different reporters/news outlets, if there are other people that have taken pictures of him, so it really makes me curious about what the real story is with this guy.



Also, its funny to read the comments the article has gotten from readers on the NYT site. Some people react extremely flaringly at this article, and it is amusing to read their responses.



I posted an actual comment on the NYT site based on what many of the people were posting in the comments with some of my thoughts, I posted:


Its funny how so many people (presumedly Americans) react to this article. I'm not encouraging this type of behavior, it is definitely a little out-there, but everyone diagnoses this as an extremely disabling and hurtful type of lifestyle seemingly based solely on the idealism of what people expect from a \"normal\" American family, but I think we need to take a look at just how \"functional\" and \"healthy\" an average American family is nowadays and examine that a bit further. I'm not saying there can't be perfectly functioning and happy families out there, but a large number of them are not. So many marriages and families in our society exist nowadays only because of this uncriticized, unflinching norm that has been a tradition for so long that to be a normal, successful member of society that you need to be married and have children. People jump into trying to meet this almost-unspoken norm before even thinking of what marriage and parenthood really means, and end up throwing themselves into a plethora of unwanted situations and life problems which they immediately want to get out of or stop, which leads to divorce, broken families, foster children, etc. So, would it really be better off for people to jump into creating a fantasy world surrounded by 2D characters where they truly, very potentially are NOT hurting anyone besides themselves, even if they later on realize it was a mistake or something they shouldn't have done, or jumping into making the idealistic, \"normal\" family where mistakes can hurt dozens of people at a time?



Anyway, someone mentioned earlier in the comments that the author didn't make much mention of the fact that most of these characters are pre-pubescent. First of all, they did, and second of all, that would've been pretty much an entirely separate article. In the article, the man himself (Nisan) said that these characters play the roles of daughter, younger sister, and lover all at once, which clearly sums up why these younger characters are more appealing to these men. All of the very accurate and observant parallels to Japanese society that the author and the users in the comments have made aside, this is simply a character that can play multiple roles in a person's life without all of the complications of them being a real person with their own feelings, expectations, etc. Interesting article.
Last edited by AEUGNewtype on Sat Jul 25, 2009 7:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Melon
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Re: NYT has an article about otaku

Post by Melon »

I just remembered I had a relevant pic to both this board and topic.

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[quote name='fpd' post='66702' date='Jul 25 2009, 01:42 AM']God, I feel really sorry for the guy who probably wasn't thinking the article would be written as a complete bashing of everything he loves. I know it's hard to write an article about something one finds to be so odd and strange without sounding a little disgusted or whatever, but did it really need to be written how it was? Not that I don't find that guy really weird, but it just seems like they probably ambushed the poor guy a little bit.[/quote]



Well, going by my own reactions to seeing this type of stuff earlier (2Dv3D girl arguments when I stumbled onto an anime(?) focused blog) it creeped me out to no end. But by reading the interview and reading that guy's words, it made me realize that it is weird, but there's another side to it, so to speak. Whether the author was like myself and it was a first impression, or she wanted to make a "OMFG JAPAN IS SO WEIRD GUYS, AND THEY'RE ALL PEDOS" article that would grab attention is beyond me.



[quote name='The☆AEUGNewtype' post='66704' date='Jul 25 2009, 08:41 AM']Also, Petit Melon, based on the meme picture you posted above, it looks like this same guy may have done news stories with a number of different reporters/news outlets, if there are other people that have taken pictures of him, so it really makes me curious about what the real story is with this guy.[/quote]



I don't know; I always thought the guy was snapped on the train by some bystander. He says he goes out with his pillow often, maybe he's "weird" in that aspect compared to other wota? Though I remember reading about another guy like him that took out his pillow and took pictures of it to post on his blog. He was a white guy from what I remember, a huge anime wota, and one day had a "breakdown" and posted pictures destroying all the merchandise and pillows. I couldn't find any of them on my HD, seems like I only kept him and the momusu wota. /shrugs If he's done a lot of interviews, I wish I could find them to read more. It seems like he's trying to get his POV out there to reach some sort of understanding, even if it works against him.



Great comment too, btw. Some interesting insights in there.
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Re: NYT has an article about otaku

Post by AEUGNewtype »

[quote name='Petit Melon' post='66706' date='Jul 25 2009, 12:12 PM']I just remembered I had a relevant pic to both this board and topic.

Image[/quote]

This guy was probably at AX somewhere.



Also, this pic is an interesting conundrum, mixing the discussion of 2D love mainstays (giant pillows) with 3D wota-ness (having real girls on them.) It makes you wonder how closely the two schools of wota/otaku are related and how far each of them will go.
Last edited by AEUGNewtype on Sat Jul 25, 2009 12:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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fpd
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Re: NYT has an article about otaku

Post by fpd »

[quote name='Petit Melon' post='66706' date='Jul 25 2009, 01:12 PM']I just remembered I had a relevant pic to both this board and topic.

Image[/quote]



TBH I would probably love having like a full set of those pillows, just cause they'd be like the (whatever they're called) wall poster things that are life sized. They'd take up a fuckton of room but it'd be funny to just have them all lined up against a wall somewhere for the hell of it. (*edit* clarification, the Momusu pillows, not the creepy little girl ones)
Last edited by fpd on Sun Aug 02, 2009 11:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ian905
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Re: NYT has an article about otaku

Post by Ian905 »

I would love those adorable Morning Musume pillows! Kawaii!



Wait, is there a place online that sells them?
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Re: NYT has an article about otaku

Post by Windy-chan »

[quote name='Ian905' post='67323' date='Aug 13 2009, 10:06 PM']I would love those adorable Morning Musume pillows! Kawaii!



Wait, is there a place online that sells them?[/quote]



I hope they don't sell them to you.
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