Requiem of a Black Sun Volume I: The Ebony Shogunate

Chapter IV: Fire and Brimstone

Otaku and regular citizens of this fine world have long been at odds with each other; their mental makeup and chemical compositions simply are not compatible.

Otaku culture, according to malpractice doctors operating in back alleys and radical evangelists, is a disease with a malignance so great that it threatens to choke out the very essence of normal human behavior.

This is true.

Now, there are probably a great many otaku out there reading this message in their desks at school or in their beds or wherever else otaku manage to stimulate their natural urges who are saying, "Sugihara Kichirou! Who the hell do you think you are exactly? You're writing a personal memoir about how you rejected the love of a beautiful fantasy princess for ecchi magazines!"

These people would not be wrong either. I'm not denying my own affliction and in no way am I condemning my fellow otaku for indulging in the...kohum, finer things in life. Cheers to you, brethren (and whatever the female version of the term is) for we will one day inherit this earth and doujinshi shall pour out from every crack and crevice in this cruel land.

Excuse me while I go scrub my mouth with potent acid to rid it of these words I have just uttered.

All self-deprecating commentary aside, it is quite well known that otaku enjoy nothing so much as to find more otaku to congregate with. Finding a fellow comrade-in-arms to share OTP's with and to play eroge with on the weekends is the pinnacle of popularity and greatness in the otaku world.

Even moreso, otaku enjoy what I like to call 'The Hunt', this being the hunt for fellow otaku in places or people we would least expect otaku to be found. In the case that we as open otaku find one of our own mixed into a sea of functional people and drowning in societal normality, we find it our duty and pleasure to pull these souls out of the hell they're living in.

Profound stuff, isn't it?

However, there is one thing otaku like more than anything else, and that is discovering 'Closet Otaku', a race of otaku that have managed to adapt to and assimilate into regular society, often becoming quite popular amongst their peers thanks to their evolutionary proficiency. During the late hours of the night, these creatures of habit delve into the realm of otakudom, often writing for and owning expansive anime blogs as well as having secret storage areas filled with their memorabilia. We know not who Closet Otaku are for the most part as they keep their identity so well hidden as to preserve their precious social life from the spiraling collapse that occurs thanks to the plague of being recognized as an otaku. No, these people did not wear masks to go buy manga, nor did they plan escape routes from the Comiket grounds to their house to avoid as much contact with people as possible. The simple answer was that they ordered such things online and attended Comiket in regular clothes as to avoid suspicion on the train back.

How do I know so much about Closet Otaku, you may ask. Well, let's just say I have extensive knowledge of such people thanks to personal experience.

In the meantime, I had more pressing matters to attend to than the classifications of otaku everywhere. At home, I was secretly raising an avid gamer who burned through my monthly allowance with no remorse. At school, the same girl sat in the desk adjacent to my own, blazing through school as if it were nothing at all, attracting the eyes of boys and girls alike. On top of that, Sigrid-san had really picked up the pace with the doujinshi, prompting me to spend late nights up with Victoria, trying to keep up with the volume of wonderful work being thrown at us.

Every weekend, Hide would intrude into my house, as he usually did, wanting to do some dungeon crawling in SSO when his true motives hid in the fact that he wished to cuddle with Victoria when he slept over. It wasn't like she minded such blatant advances from my childhood friend for she was generally far more sexual in her own language and actions toward me.