He may very well be the biggest, highest-level otaku in the Genshiken, but he’s also somehow the most stylish, most sociable, and most conventionally attractive.
When you’re flying around DCS World in the Weebjet 5000, you don’t get to take yourself seriously, no matter how much money you spent on your flight sim setup.
Obviously, otaku pursuits can be life-encompassing endeavours. The 17 Sustainable Otaku Goals serve to help otaku integrate their passion into a healthy lifestyle, thus avoiding burnout and conflicts both inside and outside the subculture.
Streaming really changed the game in the Western anime fandom. Not only did it usher in a new era of availability for anime in the West, it changed the culture here in some pretty major ways.
While anime fans often bemoan the heavily corporate nature of the production committee model and dismiss it as business interfering with art, that’s a simplistic view that fails to fully understand the purpose of the business model.
In a world where being able to merchandise a show can be a determining factor in that show’s fate, it’s counterproductive that so many outspoken anime fans in the West seem disdainful of anime made to appeal to people and sell.
While it’s okay to value one type of animation over another (Modern cartoons don’t do much for me anymore compared to anime, for example), the distinction between the two must be objective if it’s to mean anything.
Combining the classic Macross trifecta of pop music, fighter jets, and a love triangle with the intensity that it did made Macross Plus an instant classic, and many fans today consider it the quintessential Macross.