/jp/ - Otaku Culture

The Common Sense that makes the "Otaku": Rules for Consuming Popular Culture in Contemporary Japan (2008) by Thiam Huat Kam

h ttp://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/handle/10635/15853
(3 PDFs: title, summary and table of contents, thesis)

>some informants find it difficult to label as “otaku” people who buy shashinshû of gravure idols as “it is natural (tôzen) to have sexual desires towards adult women”
>These informants, while they are unreserved in calling men involved in a particular activity “otaku”, are hesitant in putting the label on women involved in the same or similar activity. This is especially apparent in their discussion of people who like idols.
>For media and social critics, it is not the dôjinshi culture and its predominantly female fans but the crossover of young men into the girls’ culture that is infuriating. At that moment in time, while it has become acceptable for women to move into boys’ culture, it is shocking and incomprehensible for men to make a parallel movement into girls’ culture, such as the worship of idols and adoration of the shôjo manga.

The Anxieties that Make the 'Otaku': Capital and the Common Sense of Consumption in Contemporary Japan (2013) by Thiam Huat Kam

only abstract: h ttp://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/handle/10635/124424