Seiyuu are those voice actors. And we can know from wikipedia that:

Voice acting in Japan has a far greater prominence than voice acting in most other countries. Besides acting as narrators and actors in radio plays, as well as performing voice-overs for non-Japanese movies and television programs, the voice actors are extensively employed as character actors in anime and video games. Some voice actors — especially certain voice actresses — often have devoted international fan-clubs. Some fans may watch a show merely to hear a particular voice actor. Some Japanese voice actors have capitalized on their fame to become singers,and many others have become live movie or television actors.

Just because of their beautiful voice and their good acting skills, more people tend to pay attention on those people working behind the screen and fell in love with their voice.

In such a Japanese culture background, voice actors not only act in anime or so on, but also games and some dramas.  

Even some popular ones can have their own music CDs or have a super concert like a normal talent. Nowadays there is a trend of seiyuu idolize. 

 Here are my collections of dramas and games. 

And there are also some voice actors events in Japan, more and more people tend to be a otaku of seiyuu right now.

Then here we comes COSPLAY. Maybe somebody would be very exciting about this.

Cosplay refers to costume play, is a performance art in which participants wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character or idea that is usually identified with a unique name.(Wikipedia)

People create this kind of way to celebrate and show their love for a character. Not only just buy the goods, but also make them like the characters, both the looking and their thinking. 

And this is a work of mine, how do you like it?

Reference,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosplay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_acting_in_Japan

On contrast that AKB48 otaku, the majority of this group are mostly female, of course. And because of the strict portraiture right of the company, I cannot post any clear photo with their talent. 

Here is what I got in Melbourne, in fact I am one of the otakus of Johnnys. I still have a lot of music CDs and other things in my hometown.

I am a fan girl of the solo talent Yamashita Tomohisa and a group named V6.

And recent years, the most popular group in Johnny’s named Arashi, which means typhoon in Japanese. Most of their singles and albums are the best sellers during the whole year’s ranking in Oricon Style.

As you can see, the Johnny’s culture influenced several generations of the whole female groups in Japan. Kimura Takuya, one of the most popular talents in Japan, is also under the name of Johnny’s since 1993. 

Not like those wota of AKB, fans of Johnny’s are more tend to be normal and acceptable. 

AKB48 is a Japanese idol girl group, initially named after the Akihabara (Akiba for short) area of Tokyo where the group's theater is located, and their original roster of 48 members. As of May 2014, the group has expanded to include 140 members whose ages range from early teens to mid-20s The idea of AKB48's producer Yasushi Akimoto was to create a girl group that, unlike a regular pop group that gives occasional concerts and that is mostly seen on television, would have its own theater and perform there on a daily basis; the fans would always be able to go and see the girls live. This "idols you can meet" concept includes the formation of different teams that are able to rotate performances and to perform simultaneously in events at various locations, as well as the organisation of "handshake" events, where fans can briefly interact with band members. Akimoto has also expanded the AKB48 concept to several sister groups throughout Japan, and also in China and Indonesia. 

AKB48 born in Akibahara, where is the otaku paradise. And the group does improve the development of WOTAGEI. Also, the group has two of their own game, you can date with your idol in the game. It sounds a little bit creepy, but it is too unrealistic.

The wota of the group is very unbelievable.

AKB48′s mystique and popularity is constructed heavily on a cult of the personality, or a cult of signs of personalities (since we know nothing of the real performers’ lives). Fans grow to love the various idols, to develop and nurture favourites who they can support. This reaches a frenzy in the “Senbatsu”, or elections, events, where fans vote for which sect leader they wish to move up in the ranks. To do this they are encouraged (commanded) to buy multiple copies of merchandise (reportedly one fan notoriously personally bought 5,500 copies of the same single); the ritual of consumer purchase is dogmatic, induced. The winners of the elections then appear in the next music video and on the next single release.

Reference,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKB48
http://tokyoraconteur.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/akb48-the-new-japanese-fascism/

Like Marvel and DC’s superheroes in western culture, heroes in tokusetsu dramas are the heroes of some Japanese. Do you remember Crayon Shin-chan’s favorite hero? He could also be one of the tokusetsu heroes.

And the most popular tokusetsu series in Japan right now might be Kamen Rider and Super Santai (Power Rangers)

And this kind of otaku is not only male, but also female.


Reference,
http://www.japan-talk.com/jt/new/20-greatest-Japanese-superheroes

This is the first blog post about the detail of Japanese otaku cyber culture. Are you ready?

First let us talk about GK.
Many people are just deeply into collecting different kinds of GK, what it is?

Terry J. Webb wrote an introduction to GK, he said that

Garage Kits originated in Japan around 1979, when restless Japanese modelers grew bored with the selection (or lack thereof) of movie-related figure kits. After creating sculptures in clay, they eventually learned to produce silicone rubber molds from their pieces and then started making castings of their handiwork in resin. Resin is a hard form of plastic that starts out as a two-part liquid that--when properly mixed--creates a chemical reaction, which causes the mixture to solidify or "cure."

And also, he talks a bit about how they are made and their amazing prize.

Garage Kits can be made up of different materials: they range anywhere from home-brew resin and white metal parts all the way up to advanced vinyl castings. Box art and instructions run the gamut from nonexistent to sophisticated, full-color art and photography.  Also, if you've never been exposed to Garage Kits before, you're probably shocked by the prices. These models are individually cast, short-run editions…and you pay for it! You know you've been bitten by the "garage bug" when $30 sounds "really cheap" for a model.

©高橋留美子／小学館

And as we can open the website of one of the biggest GK companies named Kotobukiya(壽屋), a large amount of different kind of GK comes out.

The prize of the one above is 9000 Japanese Yen, nearly about 100 Australian dollars. It is not cheap, but it do worthy that much. 

Except this kind of Japanese mode GK, let’s look at HotToys, which is a company origin in Hong Kong manufacturing highly detailed collectible merchandise to worldwide. Their works are also very popular in Japan. Most of their works are the characters in some films, but it still has properties about anime and manga. At the same time, their prize is really high.

Then let's talk something about History Otaku.

In fact, this kind of otaku is most females. They have a name – Reki-jo(歴女), which means history-loving girls. They're interested in pre-industrial Japanese history. They view this period as an ideal age of innocence and adventure.

Most of them are interested in the history of Azuchi-Momoyama period, like Date Masamune.

 (c)CAPCOM

The picture above is one of the Date Masamune in game Sengoku Basara.

Also, these fan girls even have their own organization and their own tv program, it’s so amazing.

Here is the link to their website, free to have a look.

http://rekijoshikai.girly.jp/ 

Refereces,
http://web.archive.org/web/20111119172613/http://wonderfest.com/gk-what.htm
http://main.kotobukiya.co.jp/figure/pvc/uruseiyatsura/lum.html
http://www.hottoys.com.hk/

In this blog post I just wanna give a simple list of the otaku types those I want to introduce to you. Just as I explained in last post, in my eyes, I think otaku are just those people who are maniac about a specific thing or people (person). So I tried to divide them into 10 types and write each of them in a blog post in the later days. (or maybe two types in one blog post) 

Ok let’s go!

1. Garage Kit 

A garage kit or resin kit is an assembly scale model kit most commonly cast in polyurethane resin – from Wikipedia.
For this type of otaku, they love to collect different types of GK of their favorite characters.

2. History 

It is easy to know that this type is about people who are crazy about history. And their love for history also transforms into different kinds of things. Game is one of them, details later.

3. Tokusatsu

(Source: Wikipedia)

Simply speaking it is just like superheroes origin in Japan. Modern tokusatsu comes with the appearance of the conceptual and creative birth of Godzilla, one of the most famous monsters (kaiju) of all time. It always comes with Kaiju (Monsters), Kaijin (mysterious person) Then till right now, it can be refer to some television series like Ultraman, Kamen Rider.

4. AKB otaku.

In fact I don’t know how to name this type of fans, so I just give it a simplest name. AKB means the girl idol group AKB48, and I also want it to represent all that kind of girls group in Japan. I will tell it in detail in the later blog. 



5. Johnny's

Nobody doesn’t know the super boys talent agency in Japan.

On the contrast, fan boys have AKB48, then fan girls have their princes in Johnny’s. 

6. Seiyuu 

In Japanese, seiyuu means voice actor. It’s so amazing of them using their sound to act as even totally different kind of characters.

7. Cosplay
Same as above.


As for game, manga and anime otaku. This 3 types are so common so I don't think I need to introduce them.
So the seven types above are what I wanna tell you^^ 
Here are just a simple list of what I want to do.
I will post the first formal blog about them recently.

Refrences,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKB48
http://www.akb48.co.jp
http://www.gamecity.ne.jp/sengoku4/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokusatsu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garage_kit
http://www.johnnys-net.jp/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_kei

My name’s Aki, This is my final assessment for Asian Cyber Culture this semester, I decide to make this blog as my research about Japanese Otaku culture.

In fact, at the very beginning of this semester I just decided to do the final PLAY project about the unique Japanese culture, because I love it and deeply into it. When I was very young, I was attracted by the Japanese dramas, games and anime and so on. I think I am one of them, and I am proud of being a part of them.

The word ‘OTAKU’ is a loanword from the Japanese language. It is written as お宅・オタク in Japenese. In the early times, it was used to refer to the fan who is maniac about anime or manga, and it can be applied to both male and female. But now it can relate to a fan of any particular thing. With the development of modernization, more and more people tend to spend their spare time at home surfing the Internet or just being a couch potato, they are the new kind of OTAKUs in the modern times. But in my blog, I intend to introduce the major part of otaku but not those couch potato pretending that they are otakus.

As you can see this blog site is in Japanese, and it is one of the most popular blog sites in Japan. It is known that with the development of the social network sites, people tend to write in blog less than before just spend much more time on Facebook and Twitter. But in Japan I think this trend is not the same, they spend time on SNSs, right at the same time most of them still keep the habit writing in their blog. Maybe we can say this is one kind of otaku, (smiling).

I choose to write in a Japanese blog site in order to make my final work to be more attracting. And this site named SHINOBI, which means ninja in Japanese. I think it is so interesting and can show the traditional spirits of the Japanese, so I choose this site. Hope you guys would like it.

Here the introduction of my blog is, see you in next blog post. I will introduce what I want to tell you guys through this PLAY project.