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Category: Fandom

Home Category: Fandom (Page 17)

10 things every otaku should do

December 22, 201020 commentsLauren Orsini

It’s the end of the year, so that means it’s time to set New Year’s resolutions! In this post, I’ve done you a favor and thought them all up for you!

These resolutions aren’t the boring ones you say you’re going to do every year, like working out every day or eating more veggies. These are the ones that, if you do them, will make you a happier otaku. And why do we make New Year’s resolutions if not to make our lives better?

So check out my list:

Photo by Trey Ratcliff.

10. Visit Japan. Or, if that isn’t an option, start planning a trip to Japan for sometime in the next five years. Open a special savings account. Research the Japanese cities and attractions you’d like to visit. Start learning (or keep practicing) your Japanese. If you’re in the Washington D.C. area, you can sign up for the Global Language Network for a chance to get free Japanese lessons at GWU — it’s a randomized lottery.

Photo by bananagranola.

9. Bring Japan to you if a trip is completely out of the question. Visit a Japanese botanical garden — here’s a list of the top 25 in America and an exhaustive list of most of the Japanese gardens all over the world. Several US and Canadian cities also have Japanese tea houses and cultural centers; Google your city plus “Japanese tea house” to find out. Go to a Japanese restaurant that has traditional seating or food other than sushi. In DC, I suggest Hama Sushi, which has a tatami mat room, or Cafe Japone, which is the only restaurant I know of that serves onigiri! Another thing to visit in DC is the Japanese Embassy. For the low budget and/or middle of nowhere otaku, try cooking your own Japanese food or check out some books on Japan at the library. There are a lot of options!

Photo by Keitii Keitii.

8. Marathon an entire series in one night. Do it with a new series or one of your old favorites. By watching everything back to back, you’ll get a better understanding of the story as a whole. Stock up on Pocky and Ramune and turn the lights off for the best atmosphere. This can be done with likeminded friends or alone as a test of willpower. The Otaku Journalist does NOT recommend you try this with One Piece or Bleach!

Photo by Alex Leavitt.

7. Attend an anime or sci-fi convention. This should especially be on your list if you’ve never attended one before! It’s a great way to familiarize yourself with not just the topic but the fandom that surrounds it. Figure out all the inside jokes! If you’re still not sure why the #animeconprotip hashtag on Twitter is so funny, attending your first (or second, or fifteenth) convention should help.

Photo by Elliot Trinidad.

6. Make friends with like-minded otaku. This is easier than ever now. Have a specific fandom? Create a forum/Yahoo group/Facebook page and advertise it. Have a specific location in mind? Try Meetup and start planning IRL activities. Keep in mind that these groups might already exist, so all you have to do is join! If you’re in DC, chances are you’ll meet a slew of otaku at DC Anime Club meetups or anything on my Geek Event Guide.

5. Try a new genre. Maybe you’ve always sworn off moe anime/first-person-shooters/playing a Blue deck/playing an elf character because you had a bad experience or just never had the chance to try it yet. This year, end that! If you don’t like it, you never have to do it again. And if you do, well that’s something you would have never known until you tried.

4. Make a J-list or Amazon wishlist. (You can view mine here and here to get started.) It’ll help you decide what sort of things interest you and then, depending on your budget, hone them down to what you like the best. You’ll be introduced to new shows, books and games that you might not have considered. It’s a great way to expand your horizons under the guise of mindless window shopping. At the very least, it’s certainly relaxing.

3. Give back to the community. The best way I can think of doing this is volunteering at your nearest local anime convention. As a convention volunteer myself, I’m continually amazed by how much work goes into running a convention and how important every volunteer is to the whole. If you’re busy, you can limit your volunteer time to just during the event. Don’t like cons? You could try participating in Child’s Play or Cosplay for a Cure, two very nerdy (and very kind) charity groups.

The Seventh Doctor (aka the best doctor) fanart by Kevin Bolk.

2. Create something. Write some fanfiction, if you like to write. Sew a cosplay if you’re crafty. Try your hand at drawing your own manga if you’re so artistically inclined. Other ideas: Photoshop spoof Magic cards, edit an AMV, create your own 8-bit game, sculpt deco jewelry for Lolita clothes. Next, join DeviantART to show off your skills!

1. Start a blog. This year, I’ve found that this is the best way to explore and enjoy my interests and to meet tons of amazing and likeminded people. If you share your interests and you’re enthusiastic, people will notice. If you need help getting started, click here for Bluehost, which is what I use for this site. You can even email me if you want me to walk you through starting a blog — I think the world needs more otaku bloggers!

How many items on the list have you already done? Which ones do you plan to do this year?

Otaku Journalist Interviews: Traps

November 27, 20107 commentsLauren Orsini

Wendy, a friend and Maria at Anime USA 2010.

Edit 3/13/2016 — Since writing this article nearly six years ago, I have come to acknowledge the term “trap” as an extremely offensive one. However, there is nothing offensive about crossdressing at conventions, or in the interviewee’s genuine interest in the hobby. I am preserving this post with that caveat.

One of the best parts of an anime convention is that everyone feels okay being themselves. Fans have built a culture of acceptance that invites all of us to put our personalities out on display. More than that though, we feel comfortable showing this part of ourselves on the outside through appearance and dress.

Perhaps this is why I’ve always encountered a larger than usual population of traps at conventions. I’m not talking about crossplay, either. I mean ordinary women’s convention attire that makes me do a double-take. When I encountered these three attendees above at Anime USA, they asked me to guess who the trap was. The answer? All three.

So I asked (and this is something I could only ask a person in the familiar atmosphere of a convention) why they were dressed up that day. All three of these lovely ladies had fascinating answers, but since I didn’t have a notepad on me I simply took down their email addresses on my cell phone. Two of them, whom we’ll call Wendy and Maria, responded to my query. Here’s what they had to say:

Otaku Journalist: When was the first time you decided to cross dress?

Wendy: First time… Wow, i started young… Maybe 13 or 14 years old. It wasn’t public, just something i did while home alone. I stole mom’s bra and old clothes that didn’t fit her anymore until i could afford to buy my own girl clothes. My first public outing was actually at a convention. I had a lot of support from friends in my anime group but once i was there i just loved it.

Maria: At an anime convention. Everything and everyone around gave me so much self confidence to just be who ever I wanted to be. You dress up as your favorite character… or person… or anything. So why not? I cosplay too, even as guys still.

OJ: Do you only cross dress at anime conventions?

W: After my first successful public outing at my first anime convention, I decided with the support of my friends to cross dress at our community college. And later at the local shopping mall.

M: No, I feel more comfortable in my girly clothes. I always just wanted to feel like myself and dress the part. I love being cute. (Or at least I try to be >_<)

OJ: What sort of reactions do you get? Can you think of an especially interesting one?

W: Reactions are priceless. I wish I had a video camera for all the people I’ve met while cross dressing. Mostly they’re all positive, really funny reactions. I love the “OMG!!! I thought you were a girl!” at the top of their lungs, then turn a dark shade of red, from a guy reaction. Happens a lot. Interestingly enough, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there was this one time a group of friends and I were coming out of a movie theater and I’m bouncing off the walls talking about the awesome movie we just saw and out of no where this car runs up on the side walk almost hitting me and this guy jumps out with a tire iron yelling obscenities at me. Again I have my wonderful friends to thank for basically saving my life.

M: Some terrible ones, some amazing ones. The whole platter… I’ve gotten a death threat or two there, and I got a “more power to you” a million times at a con. As far as the bewildered goes, in the bathrooms when people question which bathroom they chose.

OJ: Which bathroom do you use when you are trapping? (Is it called “trapping”?)

W: Bathroom is easy. I have a male part, albeit you cant tell when I’m dressed up, therefore I go into the male stall. Those are some great expressions too. Ever try peeing while standing up in a corset and a puffy skirt? It ain’t easy. (No clue if “trapping” is the proper term.)

M: Both, either or. I can see why people would be worried about me going into a female bathroom. But… I just wish to be normal and be me…

OJ: Do you think dressing up as a trap has any tie to your sexuality?

W: Yes and no. I am and probably will forever be heterosexual with gay tendencies. If that makes sense at all. Dressing up just makes it easier to be attracted to any humanoid male or female. I am defiantly most deviant when cross dressing.

M: In every single way. But I look at sexuality for the term sex. I am not interested in sex and the trap part of it really isnt for the sexual fancies… it’s for me. I really am not interested in sex like I said. I’m really in life just to have a fun time being me. You know?

—

I am so grateful to Wendy and Maria for opening up to me about their hobby. It really goes to show that even when two people are participating in the same activity, their experiences can infinitely vary.

By the way, you’re probably wondering why I didn’t interview any female traps. Well, if you’re on Twitter, you know that I’ve dressed up as a “reverse trap” before myself for a drag show in college. (Yes, that links to a photo.) However, as Wendy, Maria and I discussed, there’s not as much risk in it for girls.

“Girls wear pants all the time,” Maria said. “But you don’t see a lot of guys wearing skirts.”

I’m want to make “Otaku Journalist interviews” a recurring series. Anyone have an interesting hobby and want to be interviewed? Let me know and put “interview” in the subject line.

What’s the appeal of cat ears?

August 26, 201030 commentsLauren Orsini

After finishing Strike Witches, I was stuck on the way that, when performing magic, the girls developed cat ears and tails for no apparent reason. The Strike Witches producers knew what decades of anime has already confirmed: cat ears on women are cute.

For the past two weeks, I have been trying to dig a little deeper. We already know that catgirls (and catboys) are adorable, but why do we feel that way? And why are they so prevalent in anime? So far, I have three theories:

1) Cat ears appeal to our animal instincts. Sure, we’ve come out of our caves and we wear clothes now, but our brains still have their instinctual residues like the fight or flight response. Maybe we think catgirls are the manifestation of a woman who follows her animal brain, her immediate needs and desires. We find the idea of an impulsive woman unbarred by modern rules and morals attractive.

2) Cat ears resonate with ancient human mythologies. There were the cat gods, worshipped by the ancient Egyptians, including the fierce and beautiful Bastet. More closely tied to anime was the Japanese bakeneko, a cat demon who could disguise itself as an alluring woman. According to the Catgirl Research Foundation, there are also more catgirl myths from Britain, Ireland, and South Africa.

3) Catgirls can be guiltlessly objectified. This fits in with the moe anthropomorphism I discussed in my fan service articles. When we combine women and girls’ bodies with non-human elements, like computer or, in this case, animal parts, they appear less human to us. Therefore, we do not feel the obligation to treat them with the respect we’d offer other humans, and can lust after them without worry.

However, I haven’t yet been able to find much to support or disprove my claims. I’ve tried the forums of the Catgirl Research Foundation, contacted Kittenplay.org, posted a call for suggestions on the Livejournal kitty_ears community, even reached out to a few anime academics.

So far, only the fantastic aniblogger Scott of Anime Almanac has responded to my call. As a self professed “expert in catgirl appreciation,” he had a lot of insight on the subject.

Scott was quick to differentiate the catgirls we see in anime from the Western women who dress up as sexy cats for Halloween. “It’s not about animal lust,” he told me in an email. “It’s far more innocent than that.”

Instead, he tied it to the attitude of real-life cats toward their masters, in that anime cat girls are both independent and affectionate. Scott said this style, “Selfish and spoiled one minute, and then sweet and affectionate the next,” already meshes well with one of the most established female personality types in anime — the tsundere — who extremely appeals to otaku.

But in a nutshell, Scott said that he thinks otaku are fans of catgirls because they are so easy to please. While some female characters, whom he refers to as having dog or puppy personalities, need a man to protect and care for them always, catgirls are more hands off:

“The catgirl, on the other hand, doesn’t need a man to run her life for her. She can do just fine all by herself. But when she is ready for some love and attention, she’ll nuzzle up to that guy, sit on his lap, knead her paws all over him, and purr with a satisfied look on her face,” he said.

And now I open up the debate to readers. Whether or not you’re a fan of cat ears, what do you think is their appeal? And if you’ve heard of an academic study on the subject that you think I’ve missed in my research, please let me know!

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