Ok so yea its been a while since I've blogged and most of my old blogs were there simply because I was bored dead at work or some such thing. However now I have to compile a series of academic articles on "Otaku-ism" as it is perceived in the Western world and discuss why its so attractive as a lifestyle. Yay for tertiary study!

Wish me luck, here goes nothing followed by a potential flame thread.

^{I love this gif ^}

Alright so...lets clear out some ground rules here before any of you try cut my nuts off...I will continue this blog fully aware of the different types of Otaku, the different connotations of Otaku and the different people claiming to be Otaku. I will refer to "Otaku" purely as "Anime Otaku" as it is Westernised as...Please dont waste time commenting on how I'm horribly wrong T_T

Onwards then:

Honestly from an outside point of view, it would simply be impossible to understand why people like myself get so tied in with Otaku life. What on Earth would make me willingly give up a significant portion of my life, my money and my time simply to watch and appreciate anime? I mean, I'd have to be completely insane right? They're just cartoons!

WRONG!

Honestly, in my personal opinion (backed by hordes of articles all over the net) I can honestly say that "just cartoons" is a misconception. If they were just cartoons then I would still be wasting my money each friday night getting boozed in town and watching amateur metal bands.

It's the characters. Whether you're a light hearted anime fan who watches Naruto, Bleach, One piece, DBZ etc (which by the way I looooathe) or a die hard anime fan who stays up all night waiting for that damned subber to release the newest episode already (T_T) you will understand that it is the characters that draw you in.

You can become attached to them so easily, it might be you relate to them, it might be you aspire to be them, or it might be you would love someone just like that in your life.

Most anime will have well thought out characters that are attractive in some way or another to someone and honestly try as you might you find yourself attached to that character...and when he/she dies or finds themselves in a predicament you start getting riled up. You want nothing more than that character to succeed and return to their pedestal that you placed them on.

Anime fans out there are nodding while everyone else is thinking: "Holy hell! Someone let a crazy onto the NZG blogging site!"

Like I said, its impossible to understand so I'll only try and explain it and you can form your own opinions.

Onwards though, that only describes ONE reason of liking anime, regardless if it seems to be the most common. It doesnt describe why people want to live the life of Otaku as it is perceived.

Lemme clear something up here, I have a perfectly normal social life, great mates, lots of inebriated times and plenty of events to take part in outside of the 4 small walls of my room.

Please take into account that gamers and otaku and the like are no longer the same as they were perceived 10 years ago...we're just normal people with odd addictions :D

Though there are those that waver more to the extreme...so I have to count them in too...regrettably.

What makes our lives so attractive as Otaku is that we put a huge portion of our time towards our hobby. Everyone has their own hobby, but ours involves in depth characters and stories (most of the time). So when some people go to sleep thinking about where the next awesome fishing spot will be, we hit the sack thinking about how Emiya is going to save himself using just a steel pole again or whether Ein/Elen is going to be good and stay good for once.

We live a life devoted to the stories that shape our lives, regardless if they are "real" or not. Each character we attach ourselves too changes us in some way or another. Might I also point out that becoming "attached" to a character happens without you knowing it more often than not. This feeling is exactly what spurred me to write my article for my tertiary study as once you're caught on one character you cant let it go.

We live a life where we imagine another world in our minds, we are mostly all realists (again some people are not) and most of us are intelligent save for the filthy weeaboos out there. We just have somewhere we can go when we need to relax...its a wonderful world full of happy faces and gigantic eye balls with like 50 sources of light shining into them. Again this is nothing new, everyone has their own way of relaxing and getting away from life (again look to fisherman...they just forget everything and go stand balls deep in water for hours on end).

It is this combination of a virtual reality, a series of well thought out characters and story lines to make you drool that catches us. Once you're in this world, it is supremely difficult to leave. In my opinion it is an addiction and one that cant easily be cured and in all honesty why the hell would I want to cure it?

Goddamnit, this is way longer than I had hoped and I didnt answer anything properly...Oh well, it was just a thought that popped in my head and needed to be let loose. Please comment honestly as I would love to know thoughts from both Otaku and non-Otaku as it would help my article a hell of a lot.

Cheers guys and girls

Now...back to procrastinating doing actual work