What is an American Otaku? Part II

Anime otaku are pretty crazy, and if you can't tell just from the blog, its pretty obvious I am one. There are other otaku as well, and ones that are just as prominent in American society today. They are not the ones wearing the word otaku on their sleeves, and are often the ones generalizing all anime into one lump sum. They are the ones calling on the powers that be that these nerds are weeaboos and anything they say is completely invalidated. The good news is that they don't know that to the non-nerd world, they are also otaku. So today we'll take a look at another type of otaku: the gaming nerd.

Gaming Otaku: A Brief Introduction

SOCIAL STIGMA MAN!!!

Gaming in America is plentiful: there are a plethora of games coming out, even for kids as young as five. Of course, there are a variety of gaming otaku, just as there are for anime,  because there are just as many genres. The three major ones are, of course, the first-person shooter (FPS), the Japanese Role-Playing Game/Role-Playing Game (JRPG/RPG), and the Massive Multi-Online Player Role-Playing Game (MMORPG). Of course, there are those that specify their otakudom to consoles: those that solely play X-Box, Nintenerds, and those that will eat up anything on a Sony console. No matter their preference, gamers still have a stigma associated with them, in much the same way otaku do.

The FPS players largely focus their console attention on X-Box, and hold their own stereotypes. These are usually the same people who are military otaku: they have a Michael Bay complex (needs moar explosions), can tell you everything about the guns in game and out of game, and can be heard uttering BOOM! HEAD SHOT! across mikes everywhere. Obnoxious as they may be, and though the player demographics are largely pre-teens, the reverse is also true as there are older gamers that enjoy them (and enjoy shooting the real life counter parts just as much). The gamer that plays these knows everything about a series and is always after the newest one (like Call of Duty or Gears of War). So they are a type of obsessive fan, and thus an otaku, all they may not be aware of it. Getting along with them is fairly easy, and spying them at conventions is even easier (they're the ones walking around in those really nice Halo cosplays, one more reason they are a part of the otaku world). You only need to play with them, and even if you are better let them win every once in a while.

The JRPG/RPG player is even more prominent as an otaku. They're games are often direct ports from Japan, translated but never watered down. These are the gamers that play for story, and are obsessive compulsive about having a perfectly organized inventory (otherwise how else are you going to get the item you need when you need it?). They vary back and forth between Nintendo and Sony consoles, and can usually agree that neither one console or the other is better. It's all about what you want from the game, and that's usually storyline.

Then there are the MMORPG fans, responsible for killing time the world over. While graphics are nice, they are not necessarily the most important things to the game. The three biggest companies, what I would consider anyway, are Blizzard, gPotato and WeMade. Pegi3 has some good games for the Western market, but not necessarily the best. World of Warcraft is still by far the most popular, and as a result of BlizzCon possibly the nerdiest thing to hit American soil.  If there was anything that came closest to being the sense of otaku in the original sense, the fans of MMORPG's are the closest. There is a definite stigma against players of the game, and a certain obsessiveness from the players. A part of it comes from the fact that the mechanics of the game are designed for repetition for success, giving the game indefinite life. A good deal of JRPG/RPG games follow this same idea to extend gameplay, something they invented and MMORPG's profit on.

Regardless of game genre, gamers still remain otaku. Their tendencies towards obsessiveness with what they enjoy, and their culture. A great deal like to argue that their genre is the best, similar to the way in which anime otaku argue over which show is the best. It leads to competitions, but rarely violence, which is by and far a good thing.

Especially when you have situations like this.

Until Next Time!
AAO