A Pseudointellectual Reads a Whole Encyclopedia | "The Otaku Encyclopedia" by Patrick W. Galbraith, A Retrospective
A few years back when I first decided that I wanted to start researching otaku culture, I put together a list of all of the English written literature on the topic. The list included a few obvious choices; Otaku: Japan's Database Animals by Hiroki Azuma, Beautiful Fighting Girl by Tamaki Satou, Anime's Media Mix by Marc Steinberg, and so on and so forth. But the first entry at the top of that reading list was a short pop-encyclopedia by one Patrick W. Galbraith. I was no stranger to that name, as it had come up several other times on my list of texts, as well as in a series of interviews with the YouTuber Pause and Select. But I put his late 2000s encyclopedia project at the very top of my list, ahead of his other works like The Moe Manifesto and then recently released Otaku and the Struggle for Imagination in Japan, and even ahead of other introductory texts like Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World. And I did it for one simple reason. I wanted to start with the very very basics in order to make sure I was starting on the right foot. And with its vivid colors and bright eyed bishoujo mascot adorning the cover, I got the impression that this book was mainly targeting a casual audience who didn't know or care about buying a $200 textbook about studying fandom. That's where I figured a good place to start would be, so I hopped on eBay, bought a copy, and waited for it to arrive. That was one year ago. After reading each encyclopedia entry at a ludicrously slow pace, I've finally finished it. So let's talk about The Otaku Encyclopedia by Patrick W. Galbraith.
The Father of Otaku Anthropology
Patrick Galbraith, also known as "That One White Dude Dressed Up As Goku That You'd See In Pictures of Akihabara Circa 2005," is, as far as I am concerned, the father of otaku anthropology. In an interview he did Tomoaki Hirai to promote the book's release, he talked about how, at that time, no one else was studying otaku from the anthropological perspective. Most of the academia was coming from the schools of psychology, philosophy, and others. Galbraith wanted to study otaku and otaku culture more directly, and so he took the anthropological approach. But even before he started writing The Otaku Encyclopedia, Galbraith had already done quite a bit in Japan. Before coming he double majored in journalism and Japanese at the University of Montana in Missoula. He came to Japan in 2004 to start studying otaku culture, and by the time he was publishing The Otaku Encyclopedia, he had been accepted as a PhD candidate at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies at the University of Tokyo. In between 2004 and the book's publication in 2009, he kept himself busy on the streets of Akihabara. He was most famous at the time for dressing up as Goku and giving guided tours of Akihabara. That started in 2007. He was also writing for the magazine Metropolis Japan, Japan's self-proclaimed number one English magazine. He also did a little bit of writing for the website Akibanana.com, and even appears in their video coverage of the 2007 Akihabara March.
Reading an Encyclopedia For Fun
The Otaku Encyclopedia is a relatively short volume made of two sections that cut between each other throughout the book. The first part, which makes up the majority of the book, is the encyclopedia portion. The entries cover a quite large range of topics related to anime and otaku culture, from classic entries to people of note to community slang. The second section is a series of interviews with notable people related to the industry and the local community. Individuals such as THE otaku celebrity Shoko Nakagawa, (in)famous ex-GAINAX staff member Toshio Okada, and legendary figure sculptor BOME all lend their voices to the book's pages. The end result is a veritable time capsule of otaku culture and the various opinions on it at the tail end of the golden age of Akihabara.
When I first started reading this book, I was really surprised at the sheer number of topics covered. Of course, everything you'd expect to be included was there. Topics like otaku, fujoshi, doujinshi, maid cafes, Comiket, and Akihabara are all accounted for, with all the necessary detailed histories and definitions to at least understand the basics of the words and their connotations. Also included were entries for legendary subcultural memes, like Nice Boat and talking about leekspin in the Hatsune Miku article. However, there was also a lot of included information that would be hard to find in English, especially when the book came out. For example, its easy to find out that Comiket moved venues in 1991 in the wake of the arrest of Tsutomu Miyazaki. It's a lot more difficult to learn the specific social and political movements that led to the move. For another example, I'd never heard the theory that the hairstyle "twin-tail" might have gotten its name from the Return of Ultraman monster of the same name. The book is a veritable treasure trove, covering tons of different cultural touchstones like landmark media works like Tokimeki Memorial and Akira, places of interest like Otome Road and the planned (but seemingly never built) United Archives, people of importance like Yoshiyuki Tomino and Hideaki Anno, and events of note such as the then recent Akihabara Massacre and the 1998 Comiket Firebomb Incident. Because of the sheer number of breadth of topics, most of them are given basic coverage, and further research on any single topic would reveal a lot more information than what's given here. For example, I would've loved to see the articles for MADs and Tobirae expanded on. However some topics are given absolutely massive page counts. The entry for "otaku" is given almost two full pages of text, articles for Akihabara clock in to about four pages total, and the article for "Mobile Suit Gundam" (Kido Senshi Gundam) is three pages by itself. So while most of the information presented is basic stuff, there is a decent amount of information to be found for certain topics.
Some articles are kind of funny to read in hindsight. The book was published in 2009, and as well read as Galbraith was, its not like he could've seen the future. For example, in the article on Video Games (Terebi game), its said that the video game market was estimated to be worth $48.9 billion in 2011. In actuality, gaming was worth $74 billion in 2011, double the estimates. It was also very strange reading the entry for "The Idolm@ster" (iDOLM@STER, THE) because at the time the book was written, neither the extremely controversial Idolm@ster 2 or the incredibly popular Idolm@ster TV anime had even been announced, and the first spin-off entry, Dearly Stars, came out the same year the book was published. That meant that the only Idolm@ster anime out at the time was Xenoglossia. Again, I'm not blaming Galbraith for not seeing the future and including the "true" Idolm@ster anime and the various sub-branches of the franchise, but its just kind of funny in hindsight. Those two aren't the only examples. The article on Tsutomu Miyazaki doesn't include the information we now know about the media's coverage of his crime. The article on The Japan e-Sports Association (Nihon e-Supotsu Kyoukai) mentions the drive of the time to get gaming recognized as an Olympic sport, which we know never happened. And the Minna Agechau Controversy is also covered in the book, but cites the myth as it was told, not including the extensive research such as was featured in YouTuber hazel's video on the controversy.
In spite of all the praise I gave to the books article selection, that topic is also my one criticism of the book. It's not even so much about the topics that weren't included (though there were a few that DEFINITELY should've been put in, like Touhou, Haruhi, Fate/stay night/TYPE-MOON, and Higurashi/ryushiki07) as much as it it's about the ones that were. Look, I'm a big sci-fi fan, and I love the works of Shirow Masamune and Mamoru Oshii as much as the next VHS tape trading anime nerd, but I reaally don't think that Ghost in the Shell 2 needed its own entry outside of the original Koukaku Kidoutai article. The article for oppai-porori was much shorter than the GitS2 one, but it still felt like wasted space. Like I said before, most of the articles were useful and interesting, but there were a small handful of articles that felt like they should've been left on the cutting room floor. The life and works of Scott McCloud are extremely interesting, and his book Understanding Comics was one of the first pieces of media that really got me thinking about the artistry and industry behind my favorite media. But I don't think he needed and entry in The Otaku Encyclopedia. And these few articles that maybe could've been cut leads to the other main issue I had, which was that there were articles that got no love that needed to be expanded on. I'm not going to call fowl or anything, but the Magnificent 49ers article really needed to be at least the same length as Osamu Tezuka's. The article for "tobirae" needed another sentence or so to help contextualize what it actually is. These issues are small but relevant.
Now onto all the irrelevant issues. These issues are so small that they're barely worth talking about, but this is my blog and I'll complain about what I want to. Feel free to skip to the next section if you don't want to slog through my bitching and moaning. This book, as was said before, is a product of its time. Of course the book explains a good bit of Japanese and otaku slang, but it also uses its own slang that made me think, "Yeah, this was definitely written during the late 2000s." For example, in the Terebi game article, the MIT engineers who made Space War! are described as "a group of computer boffins," and the Nekomimi article refers to the characters of the archetype as "sex kittens." This isn't really a bad thing, but it does really date the book as whole. Not anymore than the fact that it literally was written about the state of a culture in the late 2000s, but I digress. There's one article that seems to take direct stab at otaku. The article on "Nonai Kanojo" makes reference to "lonely otaku," which feels a bit out of style with the rest of the book's otaku pride. Another issue I combed out was that for the picture credit for the Tokyo Game Show article, a picture of booth babes was used. This is an old pet peeve of mine, of using sex appeal to advertise events that are celebrating the industry and community. It always felt very self-conscious to me, like "No, we're not a bunch of sad virgin nerds! Look at all these hot babes here!" This type of thing was common at the time, unfortunately. Gaming at the time still wasn't mainstream cool like it is now. This next one isn't really a complaint per say, but it was something I thought was weird. In the Studio Ghibli article, the movie "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" is described as a "monsters and bishoujo extravaganza." This description is neither incorrect or inaccurate, but I thought it was quite possibly the weirdest way to describe Nausicaa, so I made a note about it.
Overall, in spite of the issues I had, I think the encyclopedia portion of The Otaku Encyclopedia was a fantastic piece of work. It put a lot of vocabulary and concepts on my map that, in spite of all the research I've done, I hadn't been exposed to.
All The Lovely People
The Otaku Encyclopedia includes twelve interviews with various professionals connected to otaku culture. There are really four types of interviewees here. The matrix is a four square grid of two rows, otaku and non-otaku identifying, and two columns, those who work in an industry that birthed otaku and those who work in an industry that otaku birthed. The difference in how each of these groups talk about otaku culture was one of the most interesting parts of reading the interviews. The "non-otaku in an industry that birthed otaku" group, comprised of those such as ex-GAINAX staff member Toshio Okada, anime director Yamamoto Yutaka, and figure sculptor BOME, all come from place of having once been an otaku but no longer identify with the modern version of the culture. Yamamoto Yutaka and Toshio Okada both speak of otaku as being pitiable, lost men. The professional retro gamer, Anno Haruna, said specifically of game otaku that they "[know] way too much about the topic, so they can't talk about it anymore." Toshio Okada goes even further and talks about how the current otaku generation has lost its true purpose in society, echoing the sentiments Hayao Miyazaki also had on the subculture. This group talks about otaku as a problem to be fixed, maybe not so far as calling it a negative mutation, but neither still as a legitimate culture, either as a subculture of Japan or an international borderless culture. The second group, otaku who work in an industry that birthed otaku, is really just occupied by one force. Shoko Nakagawa is easily the most famous otaku in the world. If the name doesn't ring a bell, then you might know her as the lady who sang the opening for Gurren Lagann, the woman who told Jojo's Bizarre Adventure mangaka Hirohiko Ariki that she wanted Jotaro to step on her, or the lady that knows anisongs better than her own name. Her interview was, predictably, extremely positive on otaku culture, saying that since otaku culture is becoming more accepted in Japanese society, she could "finally enjoy life as otaku." Nakagawa was always very forthcoming about her love of otaku things like old Sentai and anime, so the interview was mostly about how she became a professional and her history of being an otaku, rather than any specific philosophical musings on the subculture. More than anything, I was happy to see her name, interview, and unique dialect make it into the book.
The third group, non-otaku who work in an industry born from otaku culture, was primarily filled by the maids. Interviews with maids are always really interesting to me, since it seems like in a large amount of cases women who become maids don't identify as otaku either before or after. And because maid cafes are by and large a service industry, it seems like they might be disincentivized to publicly speak poorly about their patrons, regardless of their actual opinions. This might be a kind of bias though, as maybe only maids who don't identify as otaku tend to be scouted for and agree to do interviews. For a counter example, the maid in the documentary Akihabara Geeks, Miss Ichika, seemed to relate more personally to otaku culture. The two maids in the interviews in this book, hitomi and Hazuki Ako, both from the biggest maid café in Akihabara @home cafe, interviewed very typically for maids. They didn't personally identify with their patrons, but they spoke well of them. hitomi was a good deal more "in character" for her interview, which makes me think that its possible that we don't know exactly what she thinks about otaku, but seeing as she is still a maid at @home to this day, I'm going to take her words in good faith. Both she and Hazuki speak about otaku in the same way that idols do, which really just made me wish Galbraith could have gotten an interview with a professional industry idol like a member of AKB48 or Dempagumi.Inc. The final group is otaku working in otaku birthed industries. In this group, there's the idol Sakuragawa Himeko, the cosplayer Ayakawa Yunmao, and the architect Morikawa Kaichiro. I really shouldn't put Morikawa in this group since I don't think I've ever heard him self-identify as an otaku, and indeed most of his work is related to Akihabara from an architectural viewpoint, as is his background. But his interview matches closer with Sakuragawa and Yunmao's than Okada and Yamamoto, and I'm trying to build a biased image here. Plus if put him in his own section then the interviews won't break evenly into a 2 by 2 matrix, and I absolutely can't have that. So Morikawa's going with the otaku. Like Shoko-tan, both Yunmao and Sakuragawa expressed that when they were younger they were worried about being seen as an otaku, but now embrace the label proudly. Both Morikawa and Sakuragawa's interviews touch a bit on the history of Akihabara, with Morikawa talking a bit about how Japan's societal flows have affected the development of the district. With all three occupying a specific topic that the interviews revolved around (idols, cosplay, and the history of Akihabara), there wasn't any space to talk about otaku from a broader point of view, but it seemed like all three were optimistic about the future of otaku culture in both Japanese society and on the international stage.
Overall I enjoyed the interviews, but at the same time I think they suffer the most from the short nature of the book. For pretty much all of the interviews, I found myself wishing that Galbraith would ask them to elaborate further. Especially with the self-identifying otaku, I wish he had asked (or been allowed to ask) some deeper questions on their thoughts on the nature of otaku, especially since Okada clearly presented his thoughts from the perspective as a once-upon-a-time otaku. But I am happy they were included in the book, and maybe some people out there who bought it were exposed to Shoko Nakagawa, and that makes the whole thing worth it in the end.
For Academia, For Life
So with ALLLLLL of that being said, what do I think about using The Otaku Encyclopedia as a starting point for researching otaku and otaku culture? This opinion is going to come from an incomplete perspective as I haven't yet read Fandom Unbound, which seems to be the "true" intro to otaku academia. But in comparison to everything I knew before, how does it hold up? Truth be told, while I really did enjoy going through the book, seeing different topics, and reading all the interviews, I'm cannot say that yes, definitively this is a good place to start. It without a doubt covers the widest base of core topics of anything I've experienced before, but there are two reasons why I'd recommend it a little after you start getting into otaku studies. The first point is the unfocused nature of the interviews. All of them are really interesting. Shoko-tan, Okada, and hitomi are still working in the same fields now as they were when they were interviewed, so it works as a fun time capsule into an earlier time in their careers. But they're not very insightful into otaku culture. A lot of the interviewees either don't identify with the otaku identity at all, and those who do don't really have any insightful comments to make on it. There were no interviews with just random people on the streets of Akihabara. Hell, Galbraith participated in the 2007 Akihabara March, so I wish he could've grabbed an interview or two from some people there. I've skimmed through another of Galbraith's books, The Moe Manifesto, which is both fully dedicated to interviews and includes a much wider range of perspectives, so I'm to see the evolution of his style when I get to that book. But for this one, if you don't already have a bit of perspective from the otaku side, such as from documentaries like Akihabara Geeks, or even from an anime or manga like Genshiken or Lucky Star, well, you aren't going to gain that here for the most part. The second reason I don't think it's great as an introductory text has to do with the encyclopedia portion. I'll stress again, I think the encyclopedia is a great resource. It's fun, it's knowledgeable, it's deep. But it's main flaw as a starting point for otaku studies is that it's missing a lot of the important media that were relevant to otaku at that time. I joked earlier about topics I would've included, but in all honesty their exclusion and the exclusion of other important media of that time like various visual novels, tokusatsu shows, and even some anime and manga, gives the book a huge hole as a time capsule of otaku culture. That's not even to talk about the massive missing gaps of perspectives of other, less Western relevant branches of otaku culture, such as train otaku and idol otaku. Yes, those parts of the culture are not completely cut, but they're missing a lot of context that shows their relevance to the greater subculture. It's one of those things that can't really be helped though. Galbraith's main otaku interests were anime and manga, and the book is short, so it can't include everything. By comparison, the other otaku related encyclopedia I own, The Anime Encyclopedia (3rd Revised Edition) by Jonathon Clements & Helen McCharthy is 957 pages long. The Otaku Encyclopedia is only 241. So it makes sense that Anime and Manga otaku topics got the most prominence. I don't think that's wrong or a bad thing, but I think it makes The Otaku Encyclopedia something to hold off on until after you've gotten an idea of what you're studying. So I'd probably recommend people watch a documentary like Akihabara Geeks, The Secret World of Comiket, or Yuki Matsuda's Otaku Documentary series, and one or two otaku media about otaku such as Otaku no Video, Tokusatsu Gagaga, or even goddamn Amazing Stranger, and THEN hitting The Otaku Encyclopedia as a bridge between those those casual experiences and more academic ones like Fandom Unbound and Debating Otaku in Contemporary Japan.
After Footfall
And that's basically all she wrote. I hope you enjoyed this massive deep dive into a pop book with a big titty anime girl on the cover. I probably would've finished this a lot sooner had I not been so nervous to read this thing in public. In his interview with Seattle Metblogs to promote the book, he mentioned, "some otaku on both sides of the Pacific tell me the brightly colored cover and character image make it a little hard to read in public!" This holds true today. This, maybe more than anything else, has tested my otaku pride. For the next discussion, I'll be reading Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World edited by Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe, and Izumi Tsuji, the (as far as I know) true first step into otaku academia. I have no idea when I'll either be done reading this, or publishing my thoughts. So look forward to it, but don't hold your breath.
SOURCES & FURTHER READING
- The Otaku Encyclopedia by Patrick W. Galbraith (2009)
- Galbraith's Senshuu University profile: https://senshu-u.academia.edu/PatrickWGalbraith
- stan interviews Galbraith for Seattle Metblogs (2009): http://seattle.metblogs.com/2009/08/19/king-of-the-fans-patrick-w-galbraith-on-manga-anime-and-otaku/
- Tomoaki Hirai interviews Galbraith for The O-Network (2009): https://www.t-ono.net/interview/otaku-interviews-patrick-galbraith.html
- Galbraith participates Patrick Macias' Otaku Internationale: The Shinjuku Summit podcast episode (2009): https://patrickmacias.blogs.com/er/2009/10/podcast-hot-tears-of-shame-x-episode-thirtyfive.html
[Editor's Corner] And it's done! Another one on the books. I was kind of worried when I first sat down to write this, since it'd been so long since I'd started reading the book. I guess that's kind of par for the course for me, writing about media that I first sat down with a year or more earlier. But this one was a really a doozy since it's one of the only times I'd taken notes while going through something, and my notes were a complete clusterfuck. But in the end everything came out OK! I'm really happy how this one came out. Not much to say on the editing/writing process this go. It's a bit different writing about a non-fiction text rather than something narrative driven like the anime I usually talk about, but it was an enjoyable experience, and I'm looking forward to writing about more otaku academic texts in the future. Next month I have something a little unusual planned, but I'll just say you'll understand why it's taken me so long to talk about my ComicVKet2/MusicVket3 pickups! Take care until then. [Editing pass finished at 11:59AM, 01/31/2022]
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