Chapter 1 - what is an otaku?

GUIDE TO BEING A MANGA OTAKU

Chapter one: what is an otaku?

The word otaku means (in America) “fan boy”. That does not mean, in any way that only boy’s can be otakus. In fact lately I have encountered many more women otaku than men. This might be only because some of the women are a bit more flashy in there otakuism or I could be that more girls go on the fansites (guilds, forums). There is also the possibility that there are just more girl otakus. Now the first step to being a manga or anime otaku is to actually read or watch manga or anime, after this is done than you can start on the road to otakuism. If you are for some really strange reason unable to find manga or anime here are some places you can go to find it.

1) You could walk/drive over to the nearest bookstore (borders, Walden books, etc.). In almost all book stores you can find at least one manga series.
2) Websites. Yes I said web sites and no I do not want you to go to the nearest computer and order a bunch of manga off it. You can go on sites like onemanga.com, where you can read manga for free, or sites like mangaotakus, where you may have to pay to read a couple of chapters (I don’t recommend it).
3) If you are looking for a place where you can get anime, well you can watch it on TV, or you can go on youtube. Yes youtube. Youtube has many episodes of many different anime on it, including many AMV’s. I have also heard that you can go to other certain sites to watch anime but I don’t really know witch ones they are.

Now that you know where to get the manga which one should you read? Easy, any one you want. I am NOT here to tell you what kind of manga to read, I don’t care if you read perverted manga, romantic comedy’s (one of my favorites), adventure, fighting or any thing! I probably wouldn’t care if you went and read one about a grisly bear that eat an axe! Go out and explore the world of manga. You will find it quite interesting.

Now that you’ve started to read manga and/or watch anime you might have noticed that you have been slowly getting addicted to it. Do not panic. On second thought, panic. Know that once you are to far down the road of addiction that you can never come back. There is no cure for this manga addiction, and people affected by it are known as otakus. Yes, the horrifying truth. But don’t start trying to find a cure because I’ve tried everything and it only makes you miserable. Knowing the truth about otakuism may make you start thinking that being an otaku is a bad thing, but don’t fool yourself. Being an otaku is the greatest gift of my young life. Ok, not quite but something close to that. Being an otaku has greatly helped me. For instance, you are having a bad day and you come home from school and start reading manga. Well when I do this I start to feel a smile spread across my face. When I am in the depth of despair I know that manga can never desert me, never stab me in the back, unless of course, the author kills off one of your favorite characters or something, in that case it’s time to start sobbing and begin a strongly worded letter to said author. I feel like doing this a lot but since many of the authors can’t read English I find myself starting a letter of complaint to an editor or something.

You are not authorized to comment here. Your must be registered and logged in to comment