Software Vault: The Sapphire Collection/Software Vault (Sapphire Collection) (Digital Impact).ISO/cdr16/wired1_1.zip/OTAKU

Text File | 1994-09-18 | 19KB | 322 lines

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The Incredibly Strange Mutant Creatures who Rule the Universe of
Alienated Japanese Zombie  Computer Nerds  (Otaku to You)

By Karl Taro Greenfeld


Three years ago, the serene Tokyo bedroom community of  Hanna was shaken
by a series of grisly crimes. Four pre- teen girls were abducted,
molested and mutilated in a  serial killing-spree The New York Times
described as so  "un-Japanese." But the perpetrator, who had sent bone
and teeth fragments to the grieving families, couldn't  have been more
Japanese. The murderer enticed the children to his six-mat in  Saitama,
then molested and murdered them, recording the  gruesome details of his
deeds on the hard-drive of his  computer. When police finally caught up
with Tsutomu Miyazaki,  they found the 27-year-old living in two
realities. By  day he was a sullen apprentice at a local print shop. By
night he lived out the fantasies he had internalized  from avidly
watching his collection of more than 6,000  slasher videos and
pornographic manga, or Japanese comic  books. In defense of his warped
client, Miyazaki's attorney  claimed that video and reality had merged;
Miyazaki  couldn't tell gory fact from gory fiction. After  Miyazaki's
much-publicized trial, one thing was clear: A  new generation of anti-
social, nihilistic whiz-kids had  arrived. Dubbed the otaku-zoku, or
otaku for short, these are  Japan's socially inept but often brilliant
technological  shut-ins. Their name derives from the highly formal way
of saying "you" in Japanese, much like calling a friend  "Sir."  First
identified by SPA! magazine in 1986, the otaku are  Tokyo's newest
information-age product. These were the  kids "educated" to memorize
reams of context-less  information in preparation for filling in bubbles
on  multiple-choice entrance exams.  Now in their late teens and
twenties, most are either  cramming for college exams or stuck in
cramming mode.  They relax with sexy manga or violent computer games.
They shun society's complex web of social obligations  and loyalties.
The result: a burgeoning young generation  of at least 100,000 hard-core
otaku (estimates of up to  1 million have been bandied about in the
Tokyo press)  who are too uptight to talk to a telephone operator, but
who can kick ass on the keyboard of a PC. Zero, 25, is a self-proclaimed
otaku who flunked out of  Keio University's math department because he
didn't like  being ordered around by teachers to whom he felt  superior.
"They couldn't deal with someone like me," he  recalled. "Now I'm
independent and I don't need to deal  with anyone like them." Zero's
life now revolves around computer games. He only  ventures out of his
six-mat in Kawagoe to acquire new  game-boards, the green, maze-like
"minds" taken from  commercial arcade games like Galaga or Space
Invaders.  At home, he plugs these circuit boards into a special
adapter on his own console, analyzes and dissects them  for bugs and
flaws that allow one, for example, to  glimpse a Space Invader's after-
image as it scuttles  across the screen or to change the color of a
yellow Ms.  Pac-Man to purple. Zero often dresses in a plain white T-
shirt and ill- fitting jeans rolled up about six inches. He doesn't
look you in the eyes when he talks; he answers quietly  with his face to
the floor. His face possesses gentle  features, but it is sickly pale.
He makes his living as a software trouble-shooter,  looking for problems
in new software before it hits the  market, earning 350,000 yen (about
$2,800) a month. He  works in his murky home, where the windows are
permanently covered with yellowing newspaper to block  out the sunlight.
"I've always liked playing games. As a boy, I preferred  video games to
other kids," Zero offered. "So I  understand technology. I'm more
comfortable with  computers than human beings. "Finding the malfunction
of a computer program or game  is thrilling because I'm basically
exposing the phony  computer experts who invented the game in the first
place," Zero says. he threads his way over the tatami floor, which is a
high-tech junkyard of old computer circuit-boards,  obsolete monitors,
archaic disc drives and a spluttering  coffee-maker. He strips down to a
white T-shirt and  striped boxer shorts - dressed for company, though
you  wouldn't know it. Zero sits on a swivel office chair and clicks on
his  Quadra 900 Macintosh PC with 240 megabytes of storage  attached to
a keyboard which Zero has remodeled to  conform to his own idea of how a
keyboard "should have  been laid-out in the first place." As he waits
for the  computer to boot, he scans the rolls of newly arrived  faxes.
The first is from his "buddy" Kojack. It's a chart of a  mid-seventies
Bay City Roller tour of Japan, including  tour dates, attendance and
play lists. Zero is  impressed. Another, from Piman in Aomori, announces
he  is selling a rare 1978 edition of "Be Bop High School"  for 50,000
yen ($400). Zero thinks it's overpriced. Zero casts them aside to read
one from Batman in Nagoya  who claims that the Thunder Dragon and Metal
Black video  games employ the same game-matrix with different  graphics
and scoring systems. Seventeen pages of notes  support this hypothesis.
Zero is not impressed. He's  known this since Metal Black hit the market
way back  last Tuesday. Zero gets busy. He disseminates a warning
through his  computer modem that flashes on terminals from Hokkaido  to
Kyushu. He warns other otaku on the Eye Net computer  network to be on
the lookout for some poser named Batman  pushing stale info. For those
few moments - as Zero's  invisible brethren attentively scan and store
his  transmitted data - he is no longer a wimp. He's a big  gun, a macho
man in the world of the otaku. Information is the fuel that feeds the
otaku's worshiped  dissemination systems - computer bulletin-boards,
modems, faxes. For otaku, the only thing that matters is  the accuracy
of the answer, not its relevance. No piece  of information is too
trivial for consideration: For  instance, for a monster otaku - an otaku
into TV and  manga monsters - the names of the various actors who  wore
the rubber suits in an Ultraman episode where  Ultraman is conspicuously
shorter than in other shows is  precious currency. For military otaku,
it's the name of  the manufacturer of 55mm armor-piercing ammunition for
the PzkIII Tank. For idol otaku - fanatics who follow  the endless
parade of cute girl pop singers - it's the  specific university the
father of darling idol Hikaru  Nishida attended. Anything qualifies, as
long is it was  not previously known. Although Zero spends most of his
waking hours exchanging  information with fellow otaku-zoku, Zero only
knows his  tribe through the computer bulletin board. He has never  met
any of them. He doesn't even know their real names. Zero speaks of
Kojack, who he has also never met in  their five-year, fax-driven
"friendship." Besides being  a computer-game otaku, Kojack is an idol
otaku. Idols,  those interchangeable performers, are the bread and
butter of the music business. Every year, 40 or 50 idols  appear from
nowhere to satiate pre-teen musical tastes.  Some, like singer Seiko
Matsuda, become fantastically  successful. Others quickly vanish. But
Kojack isn't interested in the successful idols. Nor  does he care that
idol music sucks. All he really wants  is all the information he can get
about Miho Nakayama -  a cute-as-a-button, up-and-coming idol. Of course
he  needs to know the obvious data like her star-sign,  blood- type,
favorite foods and what her father does for  a living. But he will delve
much further for arcane and  perverse factoids like her bra-size (75A -
relatively  small), any childhood diseases she may have had (Chicken
Pox), or which assistant sound engineer would have been  used on the
"Sugar Plum" single if he had been  available. Kojack scours celebrity
magazines, he accesses a "Nifty  Serve" bulletin board which may carry
idol information  deposited there by other otaku and he desperately
seeks  a way to hack into the mainframe of Nakayama's record  company
with a code-cracking program he designed  himself. There, in the company
computer, he imagines he  will find tons of choice tidbits such as
upcoming record  store appearances or release dates for new singles.
These will make him a real idol-otaku king after he  transmits them over
the computer networks to other idol- loving otaku. The point for Kojack
will not be the relevance of the  information, nor the nature of it, but
merely that he  got it and others didn't. That's what makes the
information valuable and will elevate Kojack's status as  a computer
stud. Their obsession with gathering may, at first glance,  seem no
different than the fanaticism of collectors of  rare books or ukiyoe
woodblock prints. But it is as if  instead of trading actual items, book
collectors were to  trade only information about a particular novel.
("Did  you know that Hemingway's original manuscript of For  Whom the
Bell Tolls was returned because of insufficient  postage?") The objects
themselves are meaningless to otaku - you  can't send Ultraman or a
German tank through a modem.  But you can send every piece of
information about them.  "The otaku are an underground (subculture), but
they are  not opposed to the system per se," observed sociologist  and
University of Tokyo fellow Volker Grassmuck, who has  studied the otaku
extensively. "They change, manipulate  and subvert ready-made products,
but at the same time  they are the apotheosis of consumerism and an
ideal  workforce for contemporary capitalism. "The parents of otaku are
>from the sixties generation,  very democratic and tolerant. They want to
understand  their children," Grassmuck continued. "But the kids
purposely look for things their parents can't  understand. In a sense,
the parents themselves are  immature and childish. In Japan there is
probably no  obvious image of what a grownup is." Grassmuck believes
that this communication barrier  between parents and children led to a
series of killings  of parents by their sons. The Kinzoku Bat Murderer,
for  instance, bludgeoned his mother and father to death with  a
baseball bat in the early eighties. Five or six other  kids - who,
Grassmuck said, would probably be called  otaku today - carried out
copycat crimes in the  following months. Then there's the murderous
Miyazaki, but he had  communication problems of a different sort. He was
an  outcast of the otaku community as well as with his own  family.
Every otaku emphasizes that Miyazaki is the  strange exception to an
otherwise peaceful, constructive  movement. "Miyazaki was not really
even an otaku," says Taku  Hachiro, a 29-year-old otaku and author of
Otaku Heaven,  who appeared on the scene to offset the negative otaku
image which the Miyazaki case had created. "If he was a  real otaku he
wouldn't have left the house and driven  around looking for victims.
That's just not otaku  behavior.  "Because of his case, people still
have a bad feeling  about us. They shouldn't. They should realize that
we  are the future - more comfortable with things than  people," Hachiro
said. "That's definitely the direction  we're heading as a society."
Many otaku make their living in technology-related  fields, as software
designers, computer engineers,  computer graphics artists or computer
magazine editors.  Leading high-technology corporations say they are
actively recruiting otaku types because they are in the  vanguard of
personal computing and software design. And  some otaku-entrepreneurs
have already made it big. Self- proclaimed "Otaku Mogul" Kazuhiku Nishi
is the founder  of the ASCII corp., a software firm worth a half-billion
dollars. "Many of our best workers are what you might call  otaku,"
explained an ASCII corp. spokesman. "We have  over 2,000 employees in
this office and more than 60  percent might call themselves otaku. You
couldn't want  more commitment." However, Abiko Seigo, a manager with
the same  corporation, complains that while they excel in front of  the
computer, otaku-types easily loose sight of company  goals beyond the
project before them. They can also be  lousy team-players, unable to
communicate verbally with  their non-otaku co-workers - and in the
corporate world,  the team mentality still pervades. If Taku Hachiro is
right, and the otaku are the men of  the future, how will these
chronically shy people  reproduce? What about the sex-lives of people
who admit  their terror of physical contact with another human  being?
"Masturbation is better than conventional sex," claimed  Hachiro, a
self-admitted virgin. "I guess I'm frightened  of sex. I watch a lot of
videos and read manga, and  that's about as far as I want to go.  "I
don't know if it's fear so much as a matter of  getting along with
objects better than people," hachiro  said. "If it were possible to have
sex with objects,  then that would be a different matter."  It is
therefore unsurprising that otaku are fascinated  with new technology
such as virtual reality or digital  compression as it connects to
pornography. The sales  potential for techno-driven, ultra-real
pornographic and  violent experiences via the computer is so great that
computer engineers - freelance otaku as well as  corporate programmers -
are furiously designing software  that will satisfy an otaku's "sexual"
needs. Although some otaku wait - no doubt breathlessly - for  the
development of sexy technology they can plug into  their underwear,
black-market programmers already sell  "seduction" and "rape" fantasy
games through otaku  networks. In December, a software company in Osaka,
whose product was deemed "obscene" by the powers that  be, was raided
and their stock of ultra-graphic  pornographic "games" was confiscated.
Perhaps police have good reason to worry. International  computer
networks like CompuServe are already online as  efficient and low-risk
international smuggling routes  for sexually explicit pornographic
images - showing  pubic hair is illegal under Japanese obscenity laws.
The police are only now beginning to crack down on this  type of
smuggling. A spokesman at the Osaka Police  Department says plans are on
the board to increase  monitoring of computer bulletin boards used to
distribute and sell illegal pornography. But he is not  optimistic.
"Much obscene material is already being transmitted by  facsimile over
phone-lines and is therefore virtually  impossible to monitor," the
spokesman explained.  "However, we believe that we can choke
distribution of  some pornography if we can censor the bulletin boards."
The Osaka police department has considered one strategy  to clamp down
on otaku porn networks: hire otaku  policemen. "We would probably be
more effective in  combating crime if we could train reformed otaku,"
the  spokesman said. "But unfortunately we don't have the  budget right
now." The police believe the Tsutomu Miyazaki case was an  exception,
not an omen for the future. But, for the time  being, the case has
ensured that the growing ranks of  the otaku will likely remain a fringe
group perceived by  the public as anti-social computer kooks, or worse
yet,  potential serial killers. But as things stand, the otaku are
indeed making their  mark as work-loving employees in high-technology
industries. And, as the constant stream of new hardware  and software
becomes crucial to competitiveness in all  business fields, the
ascension of otaku may be  inevitable. Or, as Zero confidently predicts
>from his gloomy lair in  Kawagoe: "One day, everyone will be an otaku."



Sidebar
*******
the different flavors of otaku fetishism:

manga otaku
***********
specialize in collecting and trading underground, hard-to-find manga
like angel, uncolored, cupid or blind logic. hangout: the haga bookstore
in kanda.

monster otaku
*************
love everything about godzilla, the smog monster, gamara, rodan,
ultraman and that one with three heads, green scales and wings. most
elusive factoid: who or what exactly godzilla mated with to produce baby
godzilla.

military otaku
**************
construct models of everything from f-15 fighter planes to WWI british
infantry issue chipped-beef rations. special treat: surrounding
themselves with plastic ship models and watching videos of "tora! tora!
tora!"


tropical fish otaku
*******************
can distinguish between the life-span of an angel fish in captivity in
the northern and southern hemispheres. Favorite pastime: memorizing the
latin names of 150 fish species, without ever owning a goldfish.


imperial otaku
**************
debate the lengths of the meiji and showa reigns down to the second.
most coveted item: a fax of princess michiko with a blemish on her
forehead.


cartoon otaku
*************
believe that somehow, somewhere, the "hello kitty" cartoon character has
a mouth. raging debate: chibi maruko-chan's favorite foods.


idol otaku
**********
believe that it really matters who was the assistant sound engineer on
harumi inoue's b-side "you me and taro." wildest dream: to see all the
way up miho nakayama's skirt.===



Copyright (c) 1993 Wired Magazine