Testing times for nerd-do-wells
Saturday August 06 2005
If they don't know, for example, precisely how many more people attended the Tokyo Comiket Manga (comic strip) convention in 2002 than in 2001, they are unlikely to make it past the first section.
Each nerd will be completely alone in this mental endeavour. Internet chatrooms and cyber cafes will be empty. There will be no conferring and the winner will take the greatest pop-culture prize of all - being officially recognised as Japan's biggest geek, or otaku.
The country's first Biblos National Proficiency Test for Geeks demonstrates Japan's otaku boom - a recent phenomenon that has demonstrated the cultural and economic power of young men and women whose obsessive interests and hobbies once pushed them to the margins of Japanese society.
But the nerds' passions are their biggest appeal. Prime-time television dramas have been based on their lives, their blogs have become best-sellers and districts of major cities are being refurbished to cater to them.
Major investment houses have begun studying the world of the otaku. Etsuko Suwa, a self-confessed otaku, who has spent the past fortnight preparing for the examination, said: "Just to get within the top 100 in the country will be fantastic."
More than a million comic-book obsessives in Japan spend the equivalent of nearly €1bn every year buying comics and travelling to conventions. An estimated 800,000 worship pop stars and fritter the equivalent of about €500,000 on attending every event in which their idol is involved.
According to a study otaku command a market worth about €2bn a year, without including the Japanese video games market.
The most striking change wrought by the otaku boom has been in Akihabara, Tokyo's electronics district. Colourful cafes have sprung up to meet the demand for geek meeting places, and a train line now links Akihabara with Tsukuba where the country's top scientific research takes place.
Akihabara has the first university specifically aimed at harnessing the talents of young otaku. (© The Times, London)
- Leo Lewisin Tokyo
