illustrations

Illustration

·      Anime

In the western design culture the term anime was more used to describe Japanese stylised animation, as anime became more popular western culture began to incorporate some of the Japanese type styles in their designs examples of this was animated series the Batman, Batman beyond, spiderman unlimited.

The influence of anime on western culture mostly started in the 1980’s. Transformers can be seen as a poor example which was inspired by mecha anime.

More and more western and Japanese animation companies started collaborating as the popularity of anime increased thus animatrix was created.  Marvel animation and Toei animation are good examples of these collaboration as they created the Dungeons and dragons series.

·      Manga

At first Manga did not really exist in the west except through imports. But in 1998 cartoon network started showing one of the first manga shows called Dragonball Z.

In 2001 magazines started showing more adult type anime for example BLEACH and Death note.

·      Otaku

A third theory sheds some light on the history of why and how the Japanese fans called themselves "otaku".

Takashi Murakami, the famous otaku/pop artist, cites his friend Toshio Okada, one of the world's leading experts on otaku culture, in explaining where the usage of "otaku" came from. Okada, Murakami says, links "otaku" to Shoji Kawamori and Haruhiko Mikimoto, the creators of Super Dimensional Fortress Macross (1982), at Studio Nue. Kawamori and Mikimoto were students at Keio University when they started working on Macross.

Keio is known as one of the more upstanding and relatively upper-class institutes of learning in Japan. In tune with their somewhat aristocratic surroundings, Kawamori and Mikimoto used the classical, refined second-person form of address, "otaku", in preference to "anata," the usual form of address. Fans of the studio's work began using the term to show respect toward Studio Nue's creators, and it entered common use among the fans who gathered at comic markets, fanzine meetings, and all-night line parties before anime movie releases. (Murakami 2001)

Tomohiro Machiyama (2004) suggests that the use of “otaku” as a form of address amongst anime fans was mimicked from the Macross anime directly. Machiyama says that the main character, Hikaru Ichijoe, frequently uses the extra-polite “otaku” when talking to other characters.

I recently heard Toshio Okada lecture at MIT, and he discussed this subject further. According to Okada, at science fiction conventions, otaku from various places (i.e. anime clubs from different schools) would meet each other. Out of respect for each other's clubs, they would refer to each other using "otaku", the extra polite form of address.

Even though Akio Nakamori would write about the otaku-zoku in a less than positive light, many otaku began using the label for themselves in proud defiance and half-joking self-deprecation. Otaku no Video (1991) provides an excellent example of sincere otaku pride combined with otaku making fun of themselves.