The word has since migrated to the U.S., where its meaning is much more restricted an American Otaku is specifically a dedicated fan of Japanese Animation. Eventually the word did become much lighter in concept.
#I USED TO BE AN ANIME OTAKU SERIAL#
Unluckily, most Japanese have heard of the term "Otaku" because of Miyazaki Tsutomu, a serial killer of children, who was also a pornographic video collector, so "Otaku" had, for a long time, a gruesome connotation attached to it. Since they overused the word "otaku" (a very formal, unusual way of saying "you," or "your house," normally used by housewives) so much, they were dubbed (by the media, perhaps) "Otaku-zoku" ("Otaku-tribe") then later just "Otaku," which in this context is roughly equivalent in English to "maniac" or "hardcore fan." Thus, the title has another meaning-"Otaku's video" or "Maniac's video." "Your video") is a phrase that was overused among videophiles. If you yourself spot an in-joke or reference you believe to be important, please let us know so that we can update these liner notes. Kamimura of Gainax for their patience and assistance in helping to assemble these liner notes.
The reason, unfortunately, is that the explanations for some of the really obscure jokes in the videos are known only to the perpetrator of the joke, and many of these people have since moved on to other companies and were thus impossible to reach.
We feel it is important to stress that there are going to be some unavoidable gaps in our information.