Via the indispensable Boing Boing, AsiaPundit is pleased to present a look at American Otaku in Japan.:

Essentially, Otaku is Japanese for ‘geek’ or ‘nerd’, specifically someone deeply versed/obsessed in the worlds of Anime (Japanese Animation) or Manga (Japanese Comic Books). Mostly, Otaku are seen as being so obsessed with their made-up worlds that they can’t live in the real one. Kind of like people I know stuck in World of Warcraft. The term even spawned an awesome TV show that I’ll blog about some point in the future called Densha Otoko.
In a strange twist of events, the term has caught on here in the States as a label of pride for geeks of all types, specifically those into Japanese culture.
So why the hell should you care about all of this?
Well, check out this Google Video ‘Otaku From USA’. It’s a Japanese TV program that chronicled a group of American ‘Otaku’ on a group tour of a Anime Festival in Japan.
It’s basically a nature video about nerds. Totally awesome.

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