Show #68 – SITACon 2008 Podcasters Unite – Part 2 – Otaku Shame

Show #068Direct Download:

OP: "Fushigi Purupuru Pururin Rin!" by Shishido Rumi from the Welcome to the NHK OST
ED: The first Welcome to the NHK end theme, "Odoru Akachan Ningen" by Kenji Ohtsuki and Fumihiko Kitsutaka

This show might count as explicit. But maybe not? Let’s call this episode "OT," for "older teen," 14+. Part 3 will be explicit. I mean we literally discuss hentai in part 3.

Hi this is Alain from the anime blog Reverse Thieves. As a regular listener to your podcast I was wondering if you could do us a favor and mention a project we are currently recruiting for. If you find our project interesting could you mention the Otaku Diaries on your next podcast and/or post our project information and contact information on your website.

We at Reverse Thieves are looking to do something a little different.

We are proposing a project called the Otaku Diaries. We are looking for people who consider themselves otaku to participate in an anonymous survey. It will be profiling the lives, loves, and losses of these individuals and how their hobby has related to shaping them. We will also be looking for patterns as well as differences in the cases. We are looking for diverse people who are not afraid to get personal, questions will include topics like prior relationships, profession, and sexuality.

If you are interested here is how it is going to work. Send us an email at otakudiary@gmail.com with a brief description of yourself include your age, sex, and location. No names need be exchanged and your anonymity will be protected, create a separate e-mail account just for this survey if you wish. If you are selected to participate, you will be given a case # to which all your answers will be attributed. After all the data is collected we will be doing several blog posts about the results.

We hope to start at the end of February, depending on the number of responses.

Thanks!

– Hisui (Alain)
www.reversethieves.com
reversethieves@gmail.com

Promo: Happy House of Hentai

We talk about nerd shame, how to extra XP by turning Noah red, and reviews of:

  • Bondage Game (a hentai)
  • Negima
  • Fate/Stay Night
  • Lunar Legend Tsukihime
  • Genshiken
  • Welcome to the NHK
  • Ressentiment
  • Densha Otoko gets another mention

– The strip Noah mentions is from Chugworth Academy http://www.chugworth.com/ , and not Short Cuts, as we suspected.
– Noah makes sweeping generalizations about Japan

Tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

15 Responses to Show #68 – SITACon 2008 Podcasters Unite – Part 2 – Otaku Shame

  1. Anonymous says:

    From the Field Notes of Daryl Surat (Podcaster, Historian):

    It’s funny how everything you people love about Genshiken is everything that made me completely and utterly stop caring about it. That you can see how the viewpoint put forth by Otaku no Video is unrealistic BS but not see that the exact same thing is EVEN MORE TRUE for Genshiken is telling indeed. “Balance.” Pfft.

    “You can be an otaku and accomplish human companionship.”

    “You are capable of loving other people if you work at it and change certain things about yourself.”

    These are far more dangerous, far more damaging lies than “you can make yourself so hardcore that you end up self-making videos, the popularity of which will allow you to open an amusement park and blast off into space.” The reason is that unlike Otaku no Video’s lies, Genshiken’s lies actually sound like they could be true. As the subtitle for that movie nobody watched states, “I Want to Believe.”

    But you better not believe. Because there is no Ohno, no Ogiue, no Misaki, no Hermes, no goddesses or queens. Only otaku.

    • froglartbge says:

      Re: From the Field Notes of Daryl Surat (Podcaster, Historian):

      All evidence to the contrary, actually.

      But, cool story, bro.

      • Anonymous says:

        Re: From the Field Notes of Daryl Surat (Podcaster, Historian):

        1. Look at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmissig/1327322350/ to get the joke, old man!

        2. I’ll have you know that I’ve read the book on Internet baiting from cover to cover! But I’ll play your [simulationist] game, rogue. Let’s say these people are out there, even though the big lie is that they could theoretically exist. There’s another big lie seems insubstantial at first, but is really the weak spot of the giant enemy crab as far as the massiveness of damage is concerned: Ohno walks in the door by her own accord. Misaki shows up at Satou’s front door. “Hermes” just happens to be on the train. And so on and so on. THAT is the [other] highly damaging lie; the notion that the protagonists of these tales always encounter these conduits of their salvation through no direct action of their own. They need only exist, and if it worked for them then by golly it can work for you, too! The message is little different from the other venomous deceits dripping from the poisoned fangs of the parademons of moe. It’s important to recognize the immortal enemy for what it is the second Ohno and Ogiue show up in Genshiken, lest yet be infected by it. Perhaps it’s too late for you.

        Let me tell you the real otaku redemption allegory: I’m gonna tell you the otaku redemption allegory where Erin actually dies (because she didn’t have this committed to memory despite having made the costume).

        It’s from the movie Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the part where Yupa gives Teto to Nausicaa. Teto is this weird feral mutant beast, which Yupa states as being highly dangerous. Ignoring the warning, Nausicaa reaches out to pet Teto…and get her hand bitten for it, drawing blood from multiple puncture wounds. Rather than reflexively drawing her hand back or even yelling out in pain, Nausicaa smiles and leaves her hand there…and in return, Teto just keeps baring down its fangs into Nausicaa, biting the crap out of her. Eventually–eventually–Teto relents, starts licking the inflicted wounds, and becomes Nausicaa’s most devoted companion.

        The problem with this allegory is that while Teto’s pre-Nausicaa nature is a fine manifestation of the necessary and proper otaku subsistence/defense mechanisms (not quite as good as Nanto Houou Ken, but then nothing truly is), people like Nausicaa don’t actually exist at all. And what would Teto be like were it not for Nausicaa? Same as Satou without Misaki, Tanaka without Ohno, Densha Otoko without Hermes. Takuro Sakamoto, that’s what.

        PS: neither you nor Erin are otaku, so don’t try and bring up your life story as contrary evidence because you guys are ordinary nerds.

        • Re: From the Field Notes of Daryl Surat (Podcaster, Historian):

          I talked with Noah, and Noah doesn’t really have time to get into a big debate with you about this, and has no interest in a fruitless discussion. Before he even considers taking you to task, there are two issues at hand:

          1. Do you think that being an otaku is essentially a mental disease no more escapable than schizophrenia? That is to say, those who become otaku have no real control over their condition and no hope of recovery – they are not otaku by choice and cannot stop. The disease chooses you, so to speak.

          2. Will any amount of evidence actually change your mind (in terms of the relationship argument about “The Lie” in Genshiken or Densha Otoko)? That is to say, if Noah presented you with ample evidence to the contrary, would you change your position? And what kind of evidence would it take and how much?

          • Anonymous says:

            Re: From the Field Notes of Daryl Surat (Podcaster, Historian):

            1. Even your precious Genshiken got it right regarding this one. They didn’t consciously choose to be otaku. They just were. If it wasn’t the anime, it would’ve been something else that did them in. But it’s not incurable: the cure is death. Some otaku off themselves, others die of some crazy medical affliction from out of nowhere. But figurative death will suffice as well. The path of otaku meifumado can be abandoned, and you can become a geek/nerd/dork instead, but it’s immensely difficult and probably cannot be done singlehandedly. Either way, the average Otaku Expiration Date is about 30 years of age, give or take a few years. Stay otaku past that, and you’re living on borrowed time, all end of Gattaca-like. That’s why the legendary otaku like Fred Patten and Steve Harrison are so legendary. They survived that far past the Otaku Expiration Date while remaining otaku.

            2. You and your passive aggressiveness! You could have just asked me if I’m a zealot/fanatic, you know. The answer is “no,” but I highly doubt you have the requisite amount of evidence in your corner to convince me that these stories are not in fact bald-faced lies put forth for the sake of making a buck/social engineering. Because if you DID, then moe wouldn’t exist PERIOD let alone be the number one dominating force behind otaku culture as there would be no need for it. If you did, then the massive schism between male and female otaku wouldn’t exist. If you did, then that stupendously low birth rate and high suicide rate you speak of wouldn’t really be that low/high, respectively. But moe DOES drive the machine, and otaku and fujoshi DON’T get along, and the Japan as seen in the movie Vexille IS coming, sooner rather than later.

            Since you cannot demonstrate these statements to be false (you’ve made the statements yourselves in previous episodes of this very podcast!), your only course of action is to argue that those facts are all irrelevant and that something being presented as entirely within the realm of possibility for everyone (read: all this Comic Party/Genshiken/NHK romance malarkey derailing people from otaku meifumado) is not a big lie if it can be shown to happen once or twice. At which point I would say “fine, the probability of that being true is not 100% impossible, it is asymptotic to the 100% mark, which for practical everyday application may as well be one and the same. It’s akin to winning the lottery.”

            My otaku shame is that I STILL want the Largo suit jacket.

          • Re: From the Field Notes of Daryl Surat (Podcaster, Historian):

            1. You seem to contradict yourself here, saying that being an otaku is like having a disease only cured by death, but then you admit that there’s an Otaku Expiration Date, heavily implying that at least with help, recovery is possible, and indeed, most people stop being an otaku after age 30 anyway. It sounds like it’s harder to recover from alcoholism than being an otaku!

            2. So Noah can’t convince you you’re wrong. Should I have asked the inverse? Will any amount of evidence you present make Noah change his mind? I’ll ask him.

  2. Anonymous says:

    There is no Tsukihime anime.

    http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/there_is_no_tsukihime_anime.png [SFW image]

    Isn’t it sad, Sacchin…

  3. Anonymous says:

    Shame

    I took a date to see Wicked City.

    Also, Black Devil Doll From Hell.

    -Keith

  4. Re: The podcast

    Hooray! A new listener!

    How did you find our podcast, by the way?

    • asb813 says:

      Re: The podcast

      I found Ninja Consultant purely by accident. Being a shameless Japanophile, I occasionally do a search on iTunes for Japanese keywords to see what podcasts are out there. I searched for “ninja” (I was obviously running out of Japanese keywords at this point…) and found your show.

      The funny thing is that, though I’ve written for Anime Insider several times, I really don’t like anime (shocking, I know), but I’m fascinated by the fan culture that surrounds it. (I’m hoping to write a book about it once the books I’m already contracted for this year have been written.) Yet the passion and humor with which you two discuss the subject really hooked me.

      So many thanks for all the work that you put into it 🙂

  5. Anonymous says:

    Odzywki

    Visit us now to read more details and facts regarding to

    [url=http://www.mega-power.pl/bsn-lean-dessert-protein-630-p-2803.html]Lean Dessert Protein[/url]

  6. Anonymous says:

    Odzywki

    Come us now to see more information and facts regarding to

    [url=http://www.odzywki-warszawa.waw.pl/dymatize-xpand]Dymatize Xpand[/url]

  7. Anonymous says:

    games,webmaster,webdesign,watercourse

    free [url=http://www.001casino.com/casino-reviews.html]casino online[/url] [url=http://www.scratch-for-cash.ws/nl/]Scratch Games[/url] [url=http://www.c-online-casino.co.uk/]online casinos[/url].

  8. Anonymous says:

    Odzywki

    Hi

    What do you thing about below diet supplement? I’m going to buy something good for muscle growth. Please give me a piece of advice.

    [url=http://www.odzywki-warszawa.waw.pl/bsn-cell-mass]BSN Cell Mass[/url]

  9. Anonymous says:

    dvd ripping software dvd to blackberry converter

    click to view rip dvd to ps3 dvd to ps3 , for special offer dvd on ipad , just clicks away

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *