2nd Day of Christmas – Stand Up For Your Otaku Woman

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Today’s moment is brought to you by on of more interesting shows from the summer season, Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, in which all of Haruka’s friends stand up to her father in defense of her fandom.

A number of titles in recent years have either questioned, poked fun at, or even demonized certain kinds of otaku fandom. Titles like Genshiken, Welcome to the NHK!, Haruhi Suzumiya, Lucky Star, Chaos;Head and even Kannagi have spoke directly about otaku to otaku. Nogizaka Haruka stands out not only for its sincere romantic elements–which, for a change, is actually mutual rather than one-sided–but for its full throated defense of fandom as contained in the scene from eps. 7 captured above. The show itself was of course one huge pander, with many of the cliche elements that go into otaku romance shows, but it’s also pretty bold in offering such a direct appeal: though one can argue it’s just preaching to the choir.

Haruka is the second major anime heroine after Lucky Star’s Konata to be a female with male otaku tastes. There’s clearly a wish fulfillment aspect involved here, though I’ve known plenty of women who were into the same shounen action shows that many other male fans are into–though that probably doesn’t really overlap much with the moe/romance/dating-sim culture that is the dominant strain in Akiba and in Asia. (In that respect, the anime blogosphere is, in my experience, not an accurate reflection of American fandom, given how much we tend to go gaga over shows like Toradora and the like.) The show could be seen as another instance of the anime culture growing more insular, though it was one of the more entertaining and well-done examples. I still enjoyed it (the parts that I saw that is…).

Author: gendomike

Michael lives in the Los Angeles area, and has been into anime since he saw Neon Genesis Evangelion in 1999. Some of his favorite shows include Full Metal Alchemist, Honey and Clover, and Welcome to the NHK!. Since 2003 he has gone to at least one anime convention every year. A public radio junkie, which naturally led to podcasting, he now holds a seminary degree and is looking to become Dr. Rev. Otaku Bible Man any day now. Michael can be reached at mike.huang@animediet.net. You can also find his Twitter account at @gendomike.