American Otaku

American otaku are as bad if not worse than the Japanese variety, and they control the American gaming world. The thing is, in Japan, buying and playing games is not a big deal, and it’s an activity that most people partake in, be it girl or boy, students, salarymen, kids, fathers, etc. This afternoon I went into a game shop as I wanted to check out used Gameboy Advance games (I can play these on my Japanese system). I hadn’t felt so weird about checking out games in years. There were lots of tables with kids playing miniature games or Magic: The Gathering (which I admit to liking), and then lots of guys ogling over dragon figures and Japanese anime like CHOBITS (the lolita complex type stuff). Sure, there are scary otaku in Japan, mostly when you go to areas of Tokyo like Akihabara, but you can still buy animation, manga or games in mainstream shops everywhere. Here, every place that sold games (or places like Walmart with a game section) that I saw had the same type of clientele. No wonder games and comics still have that kid stigma in America. It’s quite sad, really.