Otakus dancing away to a J-Pop Singer. In modern Japanese slang, an otaku refers to an overtly obsessive fan of any one particular theme, topic, or hobby. Common uses are anime otaku (one who sometimes enjoys many days of excessive anime watching with no rest) and manga otaku (a fan of Japanese graphic novels), pasokon otaku (personal computer geeks), gemu otaku (playing video games), and otaku that are extreme fans of idols, heavily promoted singing girls. There are also tetsudo otaku (metrophiles) or gunji otaku (military geeks). While these are the most common uses of otaku, the word can be applied to anything (music otaku, martial arts otaku, cooking otaku, etc). The loan-words maniakku or mania (from English "maniac") are sometimes used in relation to specialist hobbies and interests. They can indicate someone with otaku leanings, (for example- Gundam Mania would describe a person who is very interested in the anime series Gundam). They can also describe the focus of such interests (a maniakku ge-mu would be a particularly underground or eccentric game appealing primarily to otaku). The nuance of maniakku in Japanese is softer and less likely to cause offence than otaku. Amongst Japan's otaku themselves, some use the term to describe themselves and their friends semi-humorously, accepting their position as obsessive fans, and some even use the term proudly, attempting to reclaim it from its negative connotations. In general colloquial usage however, most Japanese would consider it undesirable to be described in a serious fashion as "otaku". Although stereotypically male, there are also many female Otaku. A small alleyway of Tokyo's Higashi Ikebukuro district is known as "Otome Road" ("Maiden's road"). Otome Road's otome are a cross-section of Japanese womanhood, with ages ranging from teenage junior high school girls to housewives in their late 40s. A feature of the area is that there are so many bookstores devoted to comics and books filled with stories about homosexual men, in a genre called Boys' Love or BL. Dojinshi, manga produced by amateur fans, dominate the shelves along Otome Road, with a significant chunk of the comics' stories about more famous anime that imitate, parody or develop on characters who are usually household names in Japan. Shot in BW

In modern Japanese slang, an otaku refers to an overtly obsessive fan of any one particular theme, topic, or hobby. Common uses are anime otaku (one who sometimes enjoys many days of excessive anime watching with no rest) and manga otaku (a fan of Japanese graphic novels), pasokon otaku (personal computer geeks), gemu otaku (playing video games), and otaku that are extreme fans of idols, heavily promoted singing girls. There are also tetsudo otaku (metrophiles) or gunji otaku (military geeks). While these are the most common uses of otaku, the word can be applied to anything (music otaku, martial arts otaku, cooking otaku, etc). The loan-words maniakku or mania (from English "maniac") are sometimes used in relation to specialist hobbies and interests. They can indicate someone with otaku leanings, (for example- Gundam Mania would describe a person who is very interested in the anime series Gundam). They can also describe the focus of such interests (a maniakku ge-mu would be a particularly underground or eccentric game appealing primarily to otaku). The nuance of maniakku in Japanese is softer and less likely to cause offence than otaku. Amongst Japan's otaku themselves, some use the term to describe themselves and their friends semi-humorously, accepting their position as obsessive fans, and some even use the term proudly, attempting to reclaim it from its negative connotations. In general colloquial usage however, most Japanese would consider it undesirable to be described in a serious fashion as "otaku". Although stereotypically male, there are also many female Otaku. A small alleyway of Tokyo's Higashi Ikebukuro district is known as "Otome Road" ("Maiden's road"). Otome Road's otome are a cross-section of Japanese womanhood, with ages ranging from teenage junior high school girls to housewives in their late 40s. A feature of the area is that there are so many bookstores devoted to comics and books filled with stories about homosexual men, in a genre called Boys' Love or BL. Dojinshi, manga produced by amateur fans, dominate the shelves along Otome Road, with a significant chunk of the comics' stories about more famous anime that imitate, parody or develop on characters who are usually household names in Japan.