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The Pros and Cons of Being an Otaku

*Author’s note: Some stories in the essay are made up, so please read carefully.

Glady (a pseudonym) is a quasi-otaku. That is, he does not really understand what the latter part of the word means, yet he considers himself one of them. In his belief that the Japanese-originated word is similar in meaning to the phrase “a hardcore fan”, which is someone fully devoted to something he admires or even idolizes, he is convinced of his being qualified to search through his miniature grey cells grouping inside his head to find out the boons and boos of living an anime-led life. The following is a rearrangement of his findings, categorized into the advantages and the disadvantages of the stated status.

According to Glady, the word “advantages” must always be in plural form when it involves an anime-related issue. However, it is amusing to watch Glady’s report of his research. He listed a hundred benefits of watching anime, among which I handpicked the most important ones. Here are two most essential and convincing reason he could provide. His first claim is that enjoying a heart-soothing anime—a word meaning Japanese animations, in case you have been wondering—has healing power. Sometimes, just watching a captured frame or listening to a song from an anime like “Ojamajo Doremi” or “Onegai, My Melody.” makes one feel like having dozens of alpha waves in his brain. His next proof of the Japanese stories’ deserving a place in his heart is that they have helped his getting along with things in the “real” world. For example, a well-known story as seemingly lighthearted as “Doraemon” is in fact full of lessons for the audience, such as Nobita’s rare independency from Doraemon’s tool. Various stories do *teach people various morals, at least to him.

On the other hand, Glady has only two disadvantages of being an “anime geek” (or “anime savvy”, or whatever he called it, without caring whether it is *grammatically correct) to present. Bless him. The first “small inconvenience” noted by Glady is the physical pain resulting from sitting stiffly in front of a rectangular monitor. Eye and body irritation (Yes, the whole body too.) are common after two or three hours’ playing. What’s more, there is emotional stress, particularly guilt. Bearing in his mind that he has duties to do, he couldn’t really feel relaxed at all, even in his free time or holiday’s session. He sincerely wishes that these two troubles vanish; still, he can’t get rid of them (or he would not have written them in the report).

As one could conclude from Glady’s studied life, every coin—in this case labeled “2D rules.” —has two sides. We must admit that a cartoon may do some people harm. A *child spending all his time sitting in front of some sort of virtual world interpreter deserves to be pitied, yet he should not expect anything really cool to come out of it. After all, he is (unfortunately) living in another world and is not “with” his favorite characters, and his only way to communicate with them is by watching, an act whose quality is rarely interactive. However, there are loads of people, having fallen in love with some 2-dimensional Homo sapiens, who ultimately realized their potentials because of them, also. One of Glady’s friends discovered his loving mathematics through his repeated readings of some special episodes of Doraemon. In conclusion, the thing that really matters is what one does with the stories in his hand, not what the stories is about nor the time one spends watching them.

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Create Date : 29 กรกฎาคม 2552

Last Update : 7 ตุลาคม 2554 22:04:44 น.

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