The Biggest Loser: Otaku Edition

Editor's note: This article was co-written by Nathan Evers and Rezz.

Here at Awesome-Robo we've remained relatively neutral in all levels of nerdom and geekery, even for fans of the otaku culture. However, I have stumbled upon something so truly awful it must be shared: America's Greatest Otaku. With something as unbearably awkward as this I'd normally recommend to give it a watch, but that would be similar to handing you a bag of dog shit and telling you to take a bite and then another, and then another for the next 40 minutes.

Fortunately, I've taken it upon myself to watch this filth so you don't have to. Hit the jump to begin the first entry of many more comprehensive recaps to come!

America’s Greatest Otaku is an 8-episode long TOKYOPOP sizzle reel of double chins, awkward mumblings and glorification of that wacky otaku subculture. The show in my mind is alternatively called The Biggest Loser: Otaku Edition, where instead of losing weight, the contestants progressively shed their dignities by the pound. However, I shouldn’t bereave these people’s right to enjoy their own universe of weirdness too much, for I am morbidly fascinated by these bizarre subcultures (see: Darkon). After all, we all have our stereotypes and presumptions as to how these subcultures operate that may not may or may not be true. Unfortunately, what Stu Levy wishes to make clear -- otaku culture spreading across America -- actually comes as much to his chagrin.

The Premise: Stu Levy, old man and all around creepy fellow, puts together a team of roughly-legal otaku apprentices to tour the country in search of the proverbial “Greatest Otaku in America,” a title of course arbitrarily bestowed by the show’s producers. The winner of this coveted title will be sacrificially offered flown to Japan.

I should be too old for this shit.

Stu is the figurative Nick Fury to the Otaku 6’s Avengers. He has searched far and wide to pry these basement-dwelling, pop-culture savants from their maternal hidey-holes and threw them on a tour bus together. Aside from years of sex-stained carpeting, accumulating cocaine and heroin residue and wafting memories of failure and has-beenism, their collections of voluptuous anime toys and stacks of dubious manga are by far the most shameful things ever brought on board.

Worse than drugs.

Stu graciously covers what the term “otaku” means for us tragically uninformed:

otaku ● (oh-tok-oo), n.  1. a hardcore fan.  2.  a geek on
steroids.  3.  so anti-social that they never leave their
home.

A certainly tongue-in-cheek, if not slightly idealized, definition of otaku, Stu. Unfortunately what’s blissfully left unstated is that everywhere but Japan is self-identifying as an otaku seen as a badge of honor. Japan absolutely reviles otaku culture, treating them as degenerate, obsessive creepazoids. Or at the very least, its connotations in Japan are the equivalent of kidnapping little girls and shanking them to death with your Buster sword (if you know what I mean). Stu instead wants you meet the passionate (read: obsessive), active otaku who represent the “anime, manga, game and J-pop lifestyle.” A troubling prospect when the entire premise of these J-centric cultures is hilariously misunderstood. Regardless, it’s “nothing to be ashamed of,” as Stu reassuringly states (again incorrectly), and that as an otaku you should “stand proud” (again, wrong). If only these single-minded, Japanophiles could remove their nihon-colored glasses and sift through the haze of smoke they’ve blown up their Japanese God-Lord’s asses, they can instead attempt to contextualize their hyperactive passions. Or maybe Stu’s ultimate goal is to simply reclaim “otaku” in a social context, the real-life parallel to starting an online petition.

The Journey: Stu, realizing a 20-city trek across America’s heartland alone will be a very tissue-heavy and forlorn adventure, decides it necessary to recruit six apprentices to join his dweeb-hunting quest. Working from a pool of hundreds of interchangeable otakunauts, Stu’s affirmative action side takes over and we get a mixed bag of culturally diverse victims participants:

• The sultry Chinese girl. (Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!)
• The nerdy white guy. (Seattle represent!)
• Sarah Palin's niece.
• An exceptionally attractive Indian girl. (Who I'm convinced has no business being anywhere near these people.)
• The token black guy.
• The probably-Korean-totally-not-Chinese dude with glasses.

To his credit, Stu did manage to pick the most non-repulsive-looking selection of the lot; a feat no doubt is ultimately self-serving. As any learned professional in the entertainment industry will tell you, “internship in L.A.” is code for “becoming a blowjob dispenser.”  

Wave goodbye to dignity!

The next time we see our beloved host, he appears to have undergone some kind of change. I’ll let his hair do the talking:

That’s right, in what must be some sort of otaku counterpart to going Super Saiyan, Stu’s hair reaches over 9000 levels of douchey. He begins to introduce the Otaku 6 to a recurring element of the show: over the next six weeks, sensei Levy is going to teach the six traits that define being an otaku. As the 6 shake their heads in bewilderment at what those traits might be, I immediately jump to these:

• Blowjobs
• Money
• Submissiveness
• Desperation
• Low Self-Esteem
• Taste for the Kitsch

Most of these traits also happen to overlap with prostitution. This is coincidental at best.

Our plucky gang’s first stop is the Los Angeles Anime Expo where we meet many lovely cosplaying otakus, like this fine fellow:

Misty got hairy.

Let’s move on.

The first potential “Greatest Otaku in America” is Ryan Tumaliuan, who wears his ironically hip, rip-off Shepard Fairey T-shirt with pride. He tells us about how he started out collecting comic books. From there it was a logical next step to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on anime toys -- yay consumerism!

I'm so fucking hard right now.

We tour his dungeon that is filled to the brim with plastic and vinyl figures (most which, unsurprisingly, are sculptures of girls of questionable age), and it’s immediately apparent that this guy is rich out of his fucking mind. Nearly every surface and inch of wall in his teenybopper trophy room is covered in some kind of merchandise. I suppose if you’re part of the Bratz Doll empire like he is, adding to this collection is just something to pass the time with.

Next up is the dullest maid cafe on the planet, in which our heroes drink different assortments of trendy teas. As it turns out, a Japanese man was once photographed sipping a cup of tea, and as the otaku way goes, so too must the he partake in this holistic ritual.

With the interview wearing on, I begin to daydream about what future episodes may hold. I daydream about our contestants competing in various trials to prove their otaku worth, or whatever. Perhaps they can be suited up in protective gear and professional ass-kickers will beat the otaku out of them. Or a Fear Factor approach where they are forced to read classic literature and watch good movies (like Con Air). Maybe a group of otakus will be put before that rude Mexican biker gang from Veronica Mars, forced to explain their favorite anime for 20 minutes. If they break down, cry, or stop for any reason, they will be executed. Violently. The final, culminating challenge is a confrontation with their families in which our finalists come out that they identify themselves as otaku.

And then Christine Choi and her painfully pink hair snap me out of my dreamy state. Christine Choi has a talent for costume design; she wears a hand-crafted and painstakingly recreated getup based off of Simca from the anime Air Gear. It’s just too bad her talent for replication is squandered on creating something that looks just as hilariously ridiculous in real life as it does in the source material. Stu turns into, for a brief moment, a creepy Tim Gunn, who fawns over her superfluous buckles and Tokyo sex-kitten chique while ogling her breasts.

Yeah, even from here your costume still looks stupid.

We’re back to the L.A. Anime Expo where the greasy Stu Levy gets his mac on with up-and-coming J-Pop sensation, Erina Mano. The luxury of being a cute Asian girl with proper dental genes is that if you can convince someone to record an album for you, chances are you’ll have a lucrative music career in America. Our nation’s otaku spank tank will be more than happy to support you until the next interchangeable J-pop sensation comes around. And God forbid said J-pop sensation gets their song on an anime -- J-pop’s version of auto-tune.

The end of the first week is nearly here, and Team Otaku arrives at Hotel Tomo, a decked out Best Western in Japantown, San Francisco. They proceed to fuck around in the differently-themed rooms, watching anime (what else?) and playing Guitar Hero horribly.

What's wrong with this picture?

Once Stu gets his fill of tomfoolery, it’s back to business as he interviews our next candidate, Gina Gallego, who owns a staggering amount of anime and manga. According to Gina, her exorbitant amount of anime and manga swag is certainly not an addiction, but a lifestyle choice. It’s kind of like how Charlie Sheen isn’t addicted to cocaine and prostitutes: it’s just something he spends a metric fuckton of money and psychological trauma on.

“What’s the most [money] you’ve ever spent on one item?” Stu asks. Gina tells him that the dolls sitting on the table before them are likely contenders. “These little dolls here that I love?” Stu yearns. He grabs the dolls, each worth $700 and $1000 a piece, and saddles them over his knees as if they were little girls. In the middle of conversation, without hesitation, he asks:

Do your cuffs come with the jumpsuit?

It seems that so far the only candidates that we’ve seen are the generic, otaku stereotypes that we’ve all come to know and loathe. There are the cosplayers who indulge in the ridiculous, and the collectors who spend extraordinary amounts of money to keep their appetites satiated. It’s all par for the course crazy. Where’s the excessively over-the-top and unrestrained otaku? Where’s the emotionally dependent otaku who is irrationally and passionately tied to this subculture? I either want to see spectacle or authenticity, and neither appears to be the case with these boring contestants. So far it’s all muddled in consumerist frenzy, and superficiality.

Someone has to get us out of this slump. Elizabeth Schweizer, take us home, girl!

Ta-da!

What a surprise -- another fucking cosplayer.

Editor's Note: America's Greatest Otaku episode 2 recap can be read here.