Otaku Spaces Shows Off Collectors’ Riches

The new book Otaku Spaces sets out to explain the complicated subculture of otaku through the stories of otaku themselves. The Japanese word usually describes people (usually men) who are obsessed with certain forms of pop culture such as manga, anime and videogames. Like any subculture, however, otakus often feel misunderstood. They are often dismissed as geeks by outsiders, where those in the know might use the term more as a synonym for “expert.”

“When you talk to these guys you find out they often have full time jobs, they’re in touch with their families, they have girlfriends, and are actually very social,” says author Patrick W. Galbraith, a known otaku historian who just received a Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo and is now pursuing another Ph.D. at Duke.

Like nerd culture in the U.S., otaku has come into the mainstream through consumer spending. A report cited in the book claims otaku spend $2.5 billion a year on their hobbies — a figure that suggests there are more than just a few otaku hiding out in their rooms.

In addition to a negative association with being nerdy, otaku men in particular can carry the stigma of sexual deviancy. This is due in large part to a media-fueled frenzy about Tsutomu Miyazaki, a reclusive and socially awkward otaku collector who was arrested in 1989 for molesting, murdering and mutilating four young girls.

“The idea [for the book] was really to move away from the stereotypes,” says Galbraith.

To do this, Galbraith and photographer Androniki Christodoulou allow the otaku subjects they feature to take control of their own narrative. The entire front of the book is filled with portraits and personal interviews.

“[The portraits and interviews] were about giving a voice and a face back to the people who are talked about but not talked to,” Galbraith says.

Since the low point of the Miyazaki arrest, both the Japanese and global media have also helped build a more positive image of otaku by creating TV shows and websites that explore the culture and work to challenge the bias. In these portraits, for example, Christodoulou asked the otaku (both men and women) to strike some kind of pose that mimicked their collection. This mimicry, says Galbraith, was one way to undermine the traditional otaku stereotype by having fun with it.

“It was kind of an over-performance where the subjects said ‘I am otaku, look at me now,’” he says.

While otaku culture is mostly associated with private spaces, collectors have also created made a home away from home in the urban areas around the shops that cater to otaku culture. In cities around Japan, these shops tend to form nodes that provide a public space for a notoriously shut-in hobby. Along with related activities like cosplay, where people dress up like an anime or manga character, these nodes are making the otaku lifestyle visible, and accessible, to anyone.

“Considering how otaku were associated with the closed rooms and social failure of Miyazaki Tsutomu in the 1990s, associating otaku with open rooms and social success in the 2000s is nothing short of a paradigm shift,” Galbraith writes in the book.

That said, there is still a long way to go.

“There are not enough pages in the world to get through the complexity,” Galbraith says. “And unfortunately there is still a lingering polarization of the otaku image into good and bad. This does nothing to tell us about the real people who live between these stereotypes and out of sight. In the book we are confronted by actual people, who graciously share their private spaces and thoughts, and I hope that readers will try to understand them as fellow human beings.”