Late-night TV in Japan is always fun to watch, and I like to flip through the channels to see what’s showing. There are usually a couple Japanese-dubbed “infomercials” from the U.S. on, one of the more unfortunate recent cultural imports, as well as talk shows with up-and-coming musicians plus plenty of random anime to watch. (Oddly, 2 am is “Golden Time” when it comes to anime, with nearly all “major” series like Clannad and Haruhi shown in this time slot, don’t ask me why.) The other night I caught an odd variety show that featured three middle-aged otaku men showing off their knowledge of anime, doing impromptu sentai performances in which they had to save actress Misako Uno from a monster in a rubber suit, and performing their favorite anime songs on a stage. My wife laughed to see the men making fools of themselves on TV, but I cautioned her to take what she was seeing with a grain of salt. First of all, Japanese television is famous for yarase or faked TV shows, and even the most natural-looking situations are usually scripted. Also, the men weren’t appearing on TV because they were otaku, but because they wanted to be on TV, which is worth keeping in mind. When a Japanese gamer officially married Nene from Love Plus in a church in Guam, he wasn’t actually marrying a video game character, but doing something silly to get famous on the Internet. The same can be said for the South Korean man who married his dakimakura anime hug pillow and those wacky fans who hold birthday parties for 2D game characters and post pictures on the Internet — their desire to see people react is part of their motivation, and thus we shouldn’t always take what they do at face value.
Like everyone, sometimes anime fans do things just to get attention.
