Obscure Anime: Otaku no Video

Gainax seems to make it their hobby to piss off a certain crowd once every decade. These days, anime companies are angry with Gainax for putting a ridiculously expensive Price Tag on their new Evangelion Movies, of course this anger recently subsided when Funimation finally paid the insane price. Ten years ago, they made everybody angry, for cutting the budget and rushing the ending of the Evangelion TV series, an ending many have sent death threats to director, Hideaki Anno for. But 10 years before that, Gainax pissed off the Okatu community as a whole, with their two episode OVA, Otaku no Video. Often referred to as the Spinal Tap of Anime, Okatu no Video is a mix of an animated story and a mockumentary, that follows the lives of a group of Otaku with dreams to take over the anime industry, while occationally breaking off into live action fake interviews, with Otaku in society. The depiction of Otaku in Japan was so accurate and yet so unflattering, that Otaku publicly called out Gainax for misrepresenting them (but anyone can tell you, Otaku were far from misrepresented, as Gainax was right on the dot with Otaku behavior). Before you get pissed off and offended if you consider yourself otaku, consider the Japanese word Otaku is not a positive term at all. In America we seem to have dumbed down the meaning to nerd or geek. the meaning of the term Otaku however, refers to individuals who does nothing but stay at home watch anime, play video games, surf the internet and have little or no social life whatsoever. We are of course talking about a group who last year, demanded rights to marry Anime and Video characters, a proposal that actually made it to Japans National Diet, I wish I were kidding. It is out of print, but is available from Animeigo's online store.