Gizmodo: otaku

Japan's 2-D Lovers: Falling In Love with a Body Pillow

Adam Frucci — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:20:00 EDT

Lisa Katayama of TokyoMango has a story in this week's NYT Magazine about otaku in Japan who are in love with anime pillowcases. Yes, they are "dating" body pillows with cartoon prepubescent girls on them. What's going on in Japan?

It's both a sad and a disturbing trend, this "2-D love" thing. It seems like a natural step from the hikikomori phenomenon, where thousands of boys afraid of the outside world shut themselves in their bedrooms for years on end.

What's driving Japanese men to these extremes of isolation and anti-social behavior? Lisa quotes stats that say that a full quarter of people in the country between the ages of 30 and 34 are virgins, while half of them have no friends of the opposite sex.

It's clearly not the only place with lonely people with social disorders, but there's something in the way their society operates that is pushing these awkward, introverted boys and men to unhealthy places. [NYT Magazine]

A Man Needs a Mother - Japan's Otaku Culture Dumps the Maid

Chris Magor — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:10:00 EDT

In a cafe deep in the heart of Amerikamura, Osaka, tables of otaku are sitting down to tea and cake with women old enough to be their mothers. Mother Café is an otaku fetishist establishment staffed with women that give off a motherly vibe; maid cafés are so yesterday.

Working up the courage to talk to a woman in a skimpy outfit like one would find in the well-publicized maid cafes can be nerve-wracking for the shyest of the shy. This is perhaps what gave Mother Café boss Asahi Geino his golden egg idea; that Osaka's loneliest otaku crowd would be more comfortable talking to someone that reminded them of their mothers.

So, what do you get at a mom café? According to Geino, "We staff our cafe with women who look older than they actually are, but they're also capable of understanding worries people have and have experience in dealing with people of all ages. Our aim is to become a kind of therapeutic cafe where customers feel at ease enough to be able to open their hearts to staff."

There are 10,000 manga titles to choose from, the opportunity to be hand-fed a slice of cake by a woman that may or may not remind you of your actual mother and if you are a regular; you get some lifestyle-related nagging thrown in for good measure. [Mainichi Shimbun]

French Maid Skirt PC Case is Otaku Heaven

Jason Chen — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:30:29 EDT

We're no stranger to maid-inspired casemods and PC accessories, but this Maid PC computer case? It's the perfect PC case for the kind of guy who wants his PC to look like the belly button to upper thigh area of a maid, but doesn't want to spend the time and effort it takes to build it himself. Be aware that the thing costs an extravagant $499, but who can put a price on being able to get off with your PC when the power's not even on? [Kilian-Nakamura]

SeXbox 3600: 10 Times the Sexy Time of an Xbox 360

matt buchanan — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:35:43 EST

Oh my god. So, the SeXbox would be a lot less creepy if it was filled with a bunch of obviously sex stuffs—vibrators, condoms, whatever. But it's not. No, it's so much worse than that.

It's just a cosplay costume, some lotion and a roter—rohtah in the original script, but I still have no idea what it is, other than that it uses batteries—which raises so many unnerving little questions. Okay, it actually raises no questions whatsoever, but I was hoping to preserve some little piece of virginal doubt in my mind. Well, um just one: Just who is the costume for? [Akiba Blog via Kotaku]

Tokyo National University Begins Anime Graduate Program, Otaku Applicants Surge Overnight

dango — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:43:46 EST

Starting next year, the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts will have something that's long overdue for an otaku-rich country: a two-year graduate degree in anime production—the first for a non-private institution in Japan. Courses will be taught by full-time professionals from the anime world including Koji Yamamura, and students will leave with two or three full-fledged works under their belt. We're jealous, but we think we might hold out for the Ph. D. in Gundam Suit fabrication studies. One day. [Yomiuri Shimbun]

Japanese Bureaucrats Busted for Editing Gundam Wikipedia Entries on the Job

Matt Buchanan — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 14:45:03 EDT

Six Japanese government drones in the Agriculture Ministry were given a verbal wag of the finger for dumping hours of worktime into editing Wikipedia, with one guy racking up over 260 contributions to Gundam-related entries. Speaking for the ministry on the matter, an official commented that "the Agriculture Ministry is not in charge of Gundam." (No joke.) Yeah, that would be the Ministry of Giant Robots. (Joke. Maybe.) [Yahoo!/AP, Flickr]

Gizmodo Japan: Moe Shirt

johnb — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 11:21:37 EST

If you could encapsulate Japan's otaku culture into a single kanji character, it would likely be the word mo , a term that has hit the big time in the past year, helped along by the maid cafe boom in Tokyo and Densha Otoko ("Train Man"), a popular drama about an anime fanboy who wins the love of a beautiful woman he meets on a train with the help of posters on an Internet BBS. The term mo (pronounced "mo-EH") describe the ultra cute, pure-hearted anime characters that pop up in anime, manga and video games these days, as well as the "burning passion" otaku feel for the objects of their various obsessions. For those inclined to wear kanji on their persons, smug in the knowledge that only a very few people will have any idea what the hell your shirt says, this mo T-shirt might be up your alley.

Product Page [J-List]

Sexy Cartoon PCs for You and Yours

tgrumet — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 14:07:25 EST

Only in Japan folks, only in Japan. Here's three interesting PC cubic consoles from Fast Corporation. You'd think they were for kids, but for some reason, I doubt it. The MOE-TR1S56-C33 is a Celeron D330, the MOE-TR1S56-P24 is Pentium 4 2.4A GHz and the MOE-TR1S56-P30 is a Pentium 4 3E GHz. All come with Windows XP. Unfortunately, they are only made-to-order right now, but still a great gift for that one person who has everything (else).

Tailored PC for otaku [oddjapan]