What does mean “Otaku”? The term was first devised in the early 1980s and it appears to have been coined by the humorist and journalist Akio Nakamori wrote a serialized magazine story, “The Investigation of “Otaku”(『おたく』の研究 ,"Otaku" no Kenkyū) explaining the term to common readers. Japan’s manga/anime-obsessed nerds and geeks he wrote, address one another by the following term:”Otaku”. Besides, Toshio Okada in the seminar “Theory of Otaku Culture” (「オタク文化論ゼミ」) referred to the term designates the consumption of anime, manga, videogames and scale-models made by Japanese fans through the 70s and 80s.
Therefore it means typically young male enthusiasts of manga and anime comics in the original. According to Brian A. said Otaku is a Japanese word that has evolved from meaning "techno-geek" to describing devoted fans who pore over Japanese animation (anime), manga (graphic books), hentai (erotic comics) and other comics-derived media4. At the present, Otaku is refer people have the deeply understand and professional for any kind of fields, not just manga and video game. However in English and internationally, it is usually used to geek refer to Otaku, it is not an accurate translation of the Japanese Otaku but the closest English- language analogue to otaku is probably the British English term anorak. However, both of these words term have negative connotations of isolated people and people, and obsessive interest in anime, manga and viedo games. The term was popularized by William Gibson’s 1996 novel ldoru, which has several references to otaku.
“The otaku, the passionate obsessive, the information age's embodiment of the connoisseur, more concerned with the accumulation of data than of objects, seems a natural crossover figure in today's interface of British and Japanese cultures. I see it in the eyes of the Portobello dealers, and in the eyes of the Japanese collectors: a perfectly calm train-spotter frenzy, murderous and sublime. Understanding otaku -hood, I think, is one of the keys to understanding the culture of the web. There is something profoundly post-national about it, extra-geographic. We are all curators, in the post-modern world, whether we want to be or not. ”
— William Gibson, April 2001 edition of The Observer5
In Taiwan, it also misunderstand Otaku’s mean due to sensationalize the news. It indicated people not really have good talk, stay in home all day, and indulge on internet. Actually, this behaviour means the social withdrawal. However, it result in create the new group of consumer and bring up the profit.
