Supremacy 1/Supremacy-1.iso/DEMOS/A-B/AMAZINE4.ZIP/HUMOUR/OTAKU.TXT

Text File | 1987-04-22 | 20KB | 544 lines

 $TERMINAL@ADDICTION


Want  to  know  the  tyre  width  of a
certain  Soviet  tank,  the Latin name
for  a  tropical fish, or the Bay City
Roller's    Seventies    tour   dates?
Japan's computer-obsessed "Otaku" kids
can't tell you because they don't like
talking to other people, but plug into
their  networks and you'll find a mine
of useless information.

Article  from  "The Face" October 1992
issue, by Christopher Seymour and Karl
Taro   Greenfeld.    Written  down  by
MADNESS, I find this quite fascinating
if  you  have  any further information
please  put  out  a  textfile,  get in
touch  with  me  on  any  of  the MAIN
boards,  or  write me at the following
address:

P.O.    Box  156,  114  79  Stockholm,
Sweden - greetings to all that deserve
it!

Ok here we go:

Three   years  ago  the  serene  Tokyo
dormitory  town of Hanna was shaken by
a   series  of  grisly  crimes.   Four
pre-teen girls were abducted, molested
and  mutilated  in  a  seriel  killing
spree  the  "New York Times" descrived
as   very   "un-Japanese".    But  the
perpetrator,  who  had  sent  bone and
teeth   fragments   to   the  grieving
families,   couldn't  have  been  more
Japanese.

Tsutomu  Miyazaki enticed the children
to his tiny suburban studio apartment,
then   molested   and  murdered  them,
recording  hte gruesome details of his
deeds   on   the   hard-drive  of  his
computer.   When police caught up with
him, 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  internalised  from
avidly watching his collection of over
6.000  slasher videos and pornographic
"manga"    comic-books.     Miyazaki's
attorney's   defence   of  his  warped
client  was  that, for Miyazaki, video
and  reality  had  merged; he couldn't
tell  gory  fact  from  gory  fiction.
After    Miyazaki's    much-publicised
trial,  one  thing  was  clear:  a new
generation  of anti-social, nihilistic
whiz- kids had arrived.

The   "otaku"   are   socially  inept,
informationcrazed,   often  brilliant,
technological  shut-ins.   Their  name
derives  from  the  most formal way of
saying    "you"   in   Japanese,   the
implication being that there is always
some kind of barrier between people.

First identified by Japanese lifestyle
magazine  SPA!   in  1986, the "otaku"
are  Tokyo's  newest  information  age
product.     These   were   the   kids
"educated"   to   memorise   reams  of
context-less information in prepartion
for  filling in multiple choice school
entrance  exams.   Now  in  their late
teens  and  twenties,  most are either
cramming  for  college  exams or still
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 100,000 hard-core
"otaku" who are too uptight to talk to
a  telephone operator but who can kick
ass on the keyboard of a PC.

Zero,  25,  a self-proclaimed "otaku",
flunked out of the maths department at
Tokyo's  Keio  University  because  he
didn't  like  being  ordered around by
teachers  to  whom  he  felt superior.
"They  couldn't deal with someone like
me,"  he  says.   "Now I'm independent
and  I  don't need to deal with anyone
like  them"  His  life revolves around
computer  games:  he only ventures out
of  his in the Tokyo suburb of Kawagoe
to acquire more gameboards, the green,
maze-like "minds" of arcade games.  At
home,  he  plugs  them  into  his  own
console,  analyses  and  dissects  for
bugs and flaws.

Zero  is  dressed  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 head bowed.  His
face has gentle features but 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
(#1,500)  a  month.   He  works in his
murky  home,  where  the  windows  are
permanently   covered  with  yellowing
newspaper   to   block  out  sunlight.
"I've  always liked playing games.  As
a boy I preferred video-games to other
kids,"  Zero  says.   "So I understand
technology.  I'm more comfortable with
computers  than human beings.  Finding
the    malfunction   of   a   computer
programme or game is thrilling because
I'm   basically   exposing  the  phony
computer experts who invented the game
in  the first place." Zero threads his
way   over  the  straw  mat  floor,  a
high-tech  junkyard  of  old  computer
circuit   boards,  obsolete  monitors,
five-inch    disk    drives    and   a
spluttering  coffee-maker.   He strips
down  to his T-shirt and striped boxer
shorts.  Now he is in his element.

Zero sits on a swivel office chair and
clicks  on his Quadra 900 Macintosh PC
with  240  megabytes  of  memory and a
keyboard  which  he  has remodelled 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 load up the programmes, he
scans   the  rolls  of  newly  arrived
faxes.   The first is from his "buddy"
Kojak.   It's a chart of mid-Seventies
Bay   City   Roller   tour  of  Japan,
including  tour  dates, attendance and
play   lists.    Zero   is  impressed.
Another  from a character called Piman
announces  he  is  selling a rare 1978
edition  of  "Be  Bop High School" for
50,000    yen.    Zero   thinks   it's
overpriced.   He  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
differentágraphics     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.
Flashing  on terminals all over Japan,
he   disseminates   his   latest  data
through  modem,  warning other "otaku"
on  the Eye Netácomputer network to be
on  the  look out 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   worshipped   dissemination
systems  -  computer  bulletin boards,
modems,  faxes.  For "otaku", the only
thing  that matters is the accuracy of
the  answer, not its relevance.  So no
piece  of  information  is too trivial
for  consideration:   monster  "otaku"
may  collect  the names of the various
actors who wore the rubber suits in an
episode   of   "Ultraman"   (a  trashy
humanoid  vs monster Japanese TV show,
still  watched  on endless reruns) and
who were CONSPICUOUSLY SHORTER than in
other   shows;   "idol"   "otaku"  may
discover what university the father of
Seventies teenybop star Hikaru Nishida
attended.  Anything qualifies, as long
as   it   was  not  previously  known.
Although  he spends most of his waking
hours   exchanging   information  with
fellow  "otaku",  Zero  only  know his
tribe  through  the  computer bulletin
board.   He has never met any of them.
He doesn'táeven know their real names.
Zero  speaks of Kojak, who he has also
never    met    in    theiráfive-year,
digitally-driven         "friendship".
Besides being a computer-game "otaku",
Kojak  is  an idol "otaku".  Idols are
the   interchangeable  performers  who
form the bread and butter of the music
business  in  Japan.  Every year 40 or
50  idols  appear  to  satiate pre-ten
musical  tastes.  Some, like the still
popular  singer  Seiko Matsuda, become
fantasically    successful.     Others
quickly   vanish.    But  Kojak  isn't
interested  in  the  successful idols.
He  doesn't care that the music sucks.
Today  he wants 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, bloodtype,
favourite  foods  and  what her father
does  for a living.  But he will delve
much  further  for arcane and perverse
factoids  like  her  bra-size (30A) or
any  childhood  diseases  she may have
had (chicken pox).

 Kojak 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 mainfram of Nakayama's record
company  wit^a code-cracking programme
he  designed  himself.   There, in the
company  computer, he imagines he will
find  tons  of  choice titbits such as
upcoming  record  store appearances or
release   dates   for  new  singles  -
information  that will make him a real
idol "otaku" king when he transmits it
over the networks to other idol-loving
"otaku".  The point for Kojak will not
be  the  relevance of the information,
nor  the nature of it, but merely that
he  has  it  and others don't - that's
what  makes  it  valuable  and Kojak a
computer  stud.   Their obsession with
gather  may,  at first glance, seem no
different   than   the   fanticism  of
collectors  of rare books or 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
through  a  modem.   But  you can send
every piece of information about him.

"The   "otaku"   are   an  underground
but they are not opposed to the system
per    se,"   says   sociologist   and
University   of  Tokyo  fellow  Volker
Grassmuck, who has stuided 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 contemporaty capitalism.
The  parents  of  "otaku" are from the
Sixties  generation,  very  democratic
and tolerant.  They want to understand
their  children, but to 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   grown-up  is."
Grassmuck     believes    that    this
communication  barrier between parents
and   children  led  to  a  series  of
killings  of  parents  by their songs.
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,  says  Grassmuck,  would
probably  be  called  "otaku"  today -
carried  out  copycat  crimes  in  the
following  months.   Then  there's the
murderous   Miyazaki,   but   he   had
communcation  problems  of a different
sort.    He  was  an  outcast  of  the
"otaku"  community as well as with his
own  family.  Every "otaku" emphasises
that Miyazaki is the strange exception
to an otherwise peaceful, constructive
movement.   "Miyazaki  was  not really
even  an  "otaku"," says Taku Hachiro,
the  29-year  old  author  of the book
"Otaku  Heaven".   "If  he  was a real
"otaku"  he  woudln't  have  left  the
house   driven   around   looking  for
victims.    That's  just  not  "otaku"
behaviour.    Because   of  his  case,
people  still have a bad feeling about
us.    They  shouldn't.   They  should
realise  that we are the future - more
comfortable  with  things that people.
That's  definitely the direction we're
heading  as  a  society." Many "otaku"
make                  their livin with
technologyrelated  fields, as software
designers,     computer     engineers,
computer  graphic  artsts  or computer
magazine       editors.        Leading
high-technology  corporations say they
are  actively recuriting "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  corporation,  a  software  firm
worth  a  quarter of a billion pounds.
"Lots of our best workers are what you
might  call  "otaku","  says  an ASCII
spokesman.   "Maybe  as many as 60 per
cent  of  our  2,000  employees.   You
couldn't   want   more   commitment.,"
However,  Abiko  Seigo, a manager with
the  same  corporation, complains that
"otaku"  types  easily  lose  sight of
company      goals      beyond     the
project before them.  They can also be
lousy    team   players,   unable   to
communicate    verbally   with   their
co-workers  -  and  in  the  corporate
world,   the   team   mentality  still
pervades.

If  Taku  Hachiro  is  right,  and the
"otaku"  is the man of the future, how
will   these  chronically  shy  people
reproduce?   What  about the sex-lives
of  people  who  admit their terror of
psyical   contact with  another  human
being?   "Masturbation  is better than
conventional  sex,"  claims Hachiro, a
self-confessed  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.   If it were possible t°
have sex with objects, then that would
be   a   different   matter."   It  is
therefore  not surprising that "otaku"
are  fascinated  with  new  technology
such  as  virtual  reality  or  digtal
compression    as   it   connects   to
pornography.   The sales potential for
technology-driven,          ultra-real
pornographic  and  violent experiences
via  the  computeráis  so  great  that
computer   engineers   are   furiously
designing  software  that will satisfy
an  "otaku"'s  "sexual" needs.  Though
some   "otaku"   wait   -   no   doubt
breathlessly  - for the development of
sexy  technology  they  can  plug into
their      underwear,      blackmarket
programmers all ready sell "seduction"
and   "rape"   fantasy  games  through
"otaku"   networks.   In  December,  a
software    firm    in   Osaka   whose
product was  deemed  "obscene"  by the
powers  that  be  was  raided  and its
stock  of  ultra-graphic  porn "games"
confiscated.  Perhaps police have good
reason  to  worry.  Showing pubic hair
is  illegal  under  Japanese obscenity
laws,   but   international   computer
networks  like  CompuServe are already
on-line   as   efficient and  low-risk
international   smuggling  routes  for
sexually explicit pornographic images.
The  police  are only now beginning to
crack  down on this type of smuggling.
The Osaka Police Department says plans
are   on   the   board   to   increase
monitoring a computer bulleting boards
used  to  distribute  and sell illegal
pornography.    But   they   are   not
optimistic  "Much  obscene material is
already being transmitted by facsimile
over  phone  lines  and  is  therefore
virtually  impossible  to  monitor," a
police  spkesman  explains.  "However,
we  can  choke  distribution  of  some
pornography  by censoring the bulletín
boards."      The     Osaka     police
department has considered one strategy
to   clamp   down   on   "otaku"  pron
networks:    hire  "otaku"  policemen.
"We  would  probably be more effective
in  combating  críme if we could train
reformed  "otaku".   But unfortunately
we  don't  have the budget right now."
The   police   believe   that  Tsutomu
Miyazaki case was an exception, not an
omen for the future.  But the case has
ensured  that,  for  the  time  being,
"otaku"   are   likely   to  remain  a
fringegroup perceived by the public as
anti-socical computer kooks or, worse,
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
competitveness in all business fields,
the  ascension  of  "otaku"  maybe  be
inevitable.   Or,  as Zero confidently
predicts   from  his  gloomy  lair  in
Kawagoe:   "One  day, everyone will be
an Otaku".

[EIGHT WAYS TO BE AN INFO FREAKO

]Monster Otaku


Love everything and anything about the
monsters  in  trash Japanese TV fodder
like   Godzilla,   The  Smog  Monster,
Gamera, Rodan and Ultraman.  The shows
may   have   been   made   aeons  ago,
but endless reruns have ensured kitsch
classic    status    for   information
obsessives.    Most  elusive  factoid:
who  or  what  exactly  Godzilla mated
with to produce Son of Godzilla.

]Military Otaku


Construct replica models of everything
from F-15 fighter plans to World War I
British  infantry corned-beef rations.
Special treat:  surrounding themselves
with  plastic ship models and watching
Tora!  Tora!  Tora!  on video.

]Jeans Otaku


Can  spot  a difference between Levi's
and Lee at 100 metres.   The obsession
for vintage  denim,   both genuine and
reproduction, has added a new twist to
the  syndrome & depleted bank balances
up&down the island. Washing tip: clean
jeans only once a year - without soap.
Tropical Fish

]Otaku


Can  distinguish  between  the average
lifespanof  an angel fish in captivity
in  the  northern  and  southern hemi-
spheres.   Futile pastime:  memorising
the  Latin  names  of 150 fish species
when  they've never even owned a gold-
fish.  Nothing to do with surrealism.

]Manga Otaku


Specialise  in  collecting and trading
underground,    hard-to-find   "manga"
comic-books like "Angel", "Uncoloured"
and "Blind Logic".  Puts those strange
beings   who   hang  out  in  London's
Forbidden Planet to shame:  at the big
bookstores in Tokyo's studen district,
some    will   stand   there   reading
"Rapeman" for eight hours on end.

]Idol Otaku


Have  got real  problems.  Not content
with   being  obsessive  about  failed
British  pop  performers  like Belouis
Some  and  Matt  Fretton (who, as they
will  always  tell  you,  were "big in
Japan"),  these  star  victims get all
steamed   up  about  their  home-grown
talent-free  singers, which the record
companies  churn  out year after year.
Dream:   to  see  all  the way up Miho
Nakayama's skirt (don't ask us why).

]Cartoon Otaku

Are  beyond  help.   Wayne's World may
have  made  Scooby  Doo hip, but we're
talking  serious  addiction to cartoon
characters      than     even     your
five-year-old  sister  would think are
naff.   You might think Pluto is cute;
they  want  to  know  which  brand  of
dog-food he eats.

]4Imperial Otaku


Make our royal watchers look like rank
amateurs.   Hello!  readers with knows
on,  they  can  tell you the length of
Emperor  Hirohito's  reign down to the
second.   Most coveted item:  a fax of
Princess  Michiko, daugther to current
emperor Akihiro, with a blemish on her
forehead.

IPspkisboC