Otaku: Japan's Database Animals

Azuma (Center for the Study of World Civilizations, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan) philosophically explores the Japanese subculture of the otaku, which typically involves males between 18 and 40 who consume, produce, and collect comic books (manga), animated films (anime), and other products related to those forms of popular visual culture. He argues that the otaku provide a new model of postmodern consumer, the "database animal," whose ability to satiate themselves by cataloging, storing, and displaying characters from their stories is different from the "human" mode of consumption that searches for deeper meaning in stories. Originally published in 2001 in Japanese as Dobutsuka suru otaku kara mita nihon shakai. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)