How do you get people to notice you? Spend lots of money, as the otaku of Japan have discovered. Or is it that Japan has discovered the otaku? The Guardian tracks the trend, with this amazing statistic:
According to Nomura Research Institute, the otaku market is worth $2.6bn (£2bn).
and this marketing/philosophical insight
Some regard the otaku as a new driving force behind industrial innovation based on satisfying consumers’ aesthetic and emotional needs rather than their desire for status.
About Brigid Alverson
Brigid Alverson has been reading comics since she was 4. After earning an MFA in printmaking, she headed to New York to become a famous artist but ended up working with words instead of pictures, first as a book editor and later as a newspaper reporter. She started
MangaBlog to keep track of her daughters’ reading habits and now covers manga, comics and graphic novels as a freelancer for
School Library Journal,
Publishers Weekly Comics Week,
Comic Book Resources, the
Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, and
Robot 6. She also edits the
Good Comics for Kids blog at School Library Journal. Now settled in the outskirts of Boston, Brigid is married to a physicist and has two daughters.
