#i understand that otaku might have negative connotations in japanese culture

[rareandunpophetaopinions]

“It annoys me to no end when people portray Japan as this boring one-dimensional otaku character that treats his friends like his living personal dolls to fit his fantasies that’s disgusised as ‘matchmaking’, while stalking them and taking pictures of them without their consent (same with Hungary).  He can enjoy anime stuff without delving into the extreme, and he has far more to him than this otaku shit.”

Adding to the above submission, I think most fans just do that portrayal because they have no idea what an otaku is and they can’t be bothered to look it up.

An otaku is a very negative thing in Japan.  Though it does equate to “geek”, the connotations are far worse.  An otaku is basically someone who’s obsessed with something to the point it runs their lives.  They’re basement-dwelling that are too engrossed with their obsession.  Western people seem to think otaku only appear in anime, but that’s a myth - there are all kinds of otaku.  Game otaku, cosplay otaku, idol otaku, military otaku and even trains otaku.

The negativity of otaku stemmed from two cases.  The first is the Otaku Murders committed by Tsutomu Miyazaki who was an anime and horror movie otaku.  The second was the Kobe Child Murders committed by a boy who was a weapons otaku dubbed “Seito Sakakibara” with his real name never being disclosed.  

I won’t give details for both cases because I don’t want someone to get upset or sick, but let’s just say both murders involved young children, and they were not pretty.  They were horrible and frightening, and downright sick.

Moving on from that, remember Hayao Miyazaki? Esteemed animator and makes some of the best anime movies like Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and Howl’s Moving Castle? He hates otaku.  He even assesses that the anime industry is being stunted from its true potential because of their audience which consists of otaku (which I can’t help but agree with).  He even assess that because the anime industry is filled with otaku - people who cannot bear to look at other people - the anime itself suffers.  However, he hates gun otaku the most - even calling them pistol nuts.

This probably went on longer than I wanted, but the subject of otaku is something that tires me out.  Because it tells me that people aren’t assed to bother learning of the connotations or cultural impact of something and just make it some kind of thing to be “proud” of when in reality it might end up upsetting someone as well as ignoring their culture.

- Mod V

P.S: Don’t bother arguing “well, we’re Western otaku! That’ sdifference!” Why don’t you just stop using the word and just say you’re a fan or you like the thing? Otaku is not a Western word, it’s Japanese, and thus it brings with it Japanese connotations.  How would you like it if I grabbed a word from your culture, not bother understanding its actually negative connotations, be proud of it, and blatantly ignored you when you try to tell me that that’s not right or cool? Bet you wouldn’t be so happy, would you?

[oumakokichi]

A lot of people seem to miss the point on otaku culture in V3 to a pretty severe degree. There's a reason why Shirogane is the ringleader people.

I feel as though alot of people in the western part of the fandom might be sort of unfamiliarwith how much the idea of being an “otaku” is intrinsically tied with verynegative connotations in Japan. It’s easy in the west to treat it as a kind offunny term which basically just means really liking anime or Japanese media ingeneral, but it goes much deeper than that.

There is quite a lot of societal pressure to succeed in theJapanese education system. The same applies anywhere, of course, moresonowadays when millennials get looked down on no matter what they do or don’t doand the opportunities for successful jobs are slimmer than ever. But in Japanspecifically, there is a high rate of depression and suicide attempts amonghigh school students who cannot “keep up” or “fit in” with the pressure tosucceed academically.

These pressures include not only the usual things such asgetting good grades and getting accepted into a good school, but alsoexpectations such as attending club and cram school in one’s “free time.” Notparticipating in club activities or going to cram school (preferably a very good, well-accepted cram school) meansnot trying one’s hardest. And all of this, of course, is on top of otherexpectations such as responding to familial obligations, hanging out withfriends, possibly even having a part-time job. And school is five days a weekwith an extra half day on Saturday, usually.

Understandably, this pressure is just way too much torespond to sometimes. There are many high schoolers who respond to the pressureby simply holing themselves up in their rooms, refusing to participate in anyof it, passively rebelling against the norm by engaging instead in activitiesor interests which aren’t usually considered important or interesting to “normalpeople.” Otaku and NEET culture definitely emerged as a result of this forcedpressure to succeed—and the stigma associated with being considered either ofthese things is very negative.

I feel as though DR as a franchise has always tried toreflect and provide commentary on these super unrealistic expectations of highschoolers in its plot. The very concept of “SHSL talents” and Hope’s Peak as aschool for only the best and brightest in dr1 was very much a metaphor for theways in which only the smartest,strongest, most talented students will be provided the environment and materialsthey need to succeed, while the rest will be thrown by the wayside. Sdr2’s anddr3’s addition of the reserve course and Hinata’s character arc only fleshedthis metaphor out further.

Just as in real life, in DR, students who don’t exhibit any “noteworthy”talents or abilities are discarded and thought of as useless to society. There’sso much pressure and so many expectations on these kids that not being able torise up to those expectations causes them to want to do basically one of twothings: 1.) Give up and die, quite literally. Or 2.) Escape somewhere else withsome other option where they don’t have to respond to these expectations andcan be around people with similar interests and mindsets instead.

It’s not a coincidence that we’ve had a variety of otaku orNEET characters in DR throughout the years.

While Yamada was little more than a joke character, it couldbe argued that he’s the one who first started the whole “2D > 3D” languagethat is featured very prominently in ndrv3 with Tsumugi later on (my mind keepsgoing back to the “Yamada timeline” fake ndrv3 spoiler and I keep laughing).Meanwhile, more recently added characters to the franchise like Mitarai,Saihara, Tsumugi have touched heavily on what it means to truly become arecluse from society and reject the world around you.

Because of the way in which societal pressure quiteliterally can drive students to want to kill themselves, there’s definitely anunderlying degree of sympathy in the DR franchise with most characters who holethemselves up in order to engage in some kind of fiction or escape fromsociety. The pressure to succeed, to socialize, to behave “normally” whilestill striving to be “the best” and compete with everyone around you, isimmense and ruthless, and I’ve always respected that DR as a franchise handledthe topic rather well in addressing that it’s perfectly normal andunderstandable to be unable to respond to that pressure.

But the series has also not shied away from touching on the muchmore negative aspects of otaku/NEET culture too, and I also appreciate that. Asmuch as DR includes gross jokes and character tropes that it shouldn’t, it canbe serious when it tries to be. The ways in which otaku culture can and hasbeen used to defend very gross/insensitive topics by claiming “it’s just fiction,” “it’s not hurtinganybody,” etc. is something that got brought up specifically in ndrv3, and I’mvery, very glad for it.

Tsumugi’s desire to escape into the realm of fiction and “theworld of Danganronpa” because of the escape it presents from reality is easy tosee from an otaku context. Unlike the real world, where more questionable orsensitive subjects would never get to be thrown about carelessly, anything goesin fiction as far as Tsumugi is concerned. DR is a world based upon tropes,parodies, and super-caricaturized fictional characters. Blood, gore, death,sexual innuendo, you name it: it all goes, and it’s considered “exciting” andan “escape” from unchanging, bland, everyday reality—“because it’s justfiction.”

Ndrv3 highlights very clearly the dangers of throwingoneself into this mindset too thoroughly and too wholeheartedly. By castingaway one’s willingness to actually interact with or open up to people and to acceptthat reality is something which can be impacted by our choices and ourinterests, we run a very dangerous risk of not caring about anything thathappens as long as we can turn a blind eye to it.

There’s a very clear reason why Saihara and Tsumugi andprobably many of the other ndrv3 characters were so convinced that the killinggame show was “the best” and the onlypossible escape from the pressure in their lives: because they were taught tothink so. Because they lived in a society which made them feel worthless aslong as they weren’t performing according to ridiculous and extremeexpectations, and if they couldn’t perform to those then it’d be better off tobe part of something else that could actually help them forget about the realworld entirely.

Tsumugi as the ringleader in ndrv3 is undeniably aninteresting choice, and she’s absolutely incredible as an antagonist. The factthat she switches from seemingly harmless otaku who makes occasional referencesto visual novels and anime for most of the game to an incredibly effectiveblank-slate chameleon who has no empathy and no sense of self is chilling—moresoknowing that she’s actually a producer forthe show, in the same way that Mitarai who had a similar problem of escapingreality (though without being evil) made anime, rather than just consuming it.Again, I maintain my stance that Kodaka’s not trying to make fans of DR out tobe the villain in ndrv3: quite the contrary, it’s Team Danganronpa and thepeople who staff it who are seen as the biggest problem.

This was really fun to write about, thank you so much anon! There’sa lot with DR that comes back to these themes and social commentary, and I wasvery glad to see ndrv3 continue that trend. The franchise is hardly perfect,but its willingness to criticize the horrible societal pressure that’s soprevalent in Japan has been a constant, and it’s something I think Kodakareally does feel strongly about.