What's With All That Spiky Hair? - Common Ideas in Anime
From otaku to magatama: Your friendly guide to understanding anime's cultural quirks and terminology
Where does the term "otaku?" originate from? How about terms like waifu and husbando?
Once again, Wikipedia is comprehensive.
But I'll do a short version. Otaku has had negative connotations in Japanese due to a high profile murder case, but it generally means "nerd" or "hardcore fan" about anything – not necessarily anime.
The term then came over to Western audiences in the late 90s to 2000s, and is used in the fandom today without much of its original negative meaning. Fans as well as anime companies and marketers use the term pretty often, so much so that it's a pretty well known word in the anime space.
For Western audiences, it might be rendered as "anime fan who knows a lot" as an approximation.
Waifu and Husbando
Waifu and husbando are definitely slang terms, as are the various -deres. (see below)
"Waifu" was first used in Azumanga Daioh (to the best of anyone's memory) being how a crappy English teacher introduced his wife as "Mai waifu". "Husbando" is simply husband with the -o appended, because that's how many loanwords from English end. (For example, if I were to romanize No Game No Life, it would be "No Geemu No Raifu" because there's no "f" ending in Japanese)
A waifu is sort of an imaginary crush on an anime character who you would love to be your wife in real life. It's usually used as a tongue in cheek joke, but there are stories of fans who are unable to differentiate between reality and fantasy, which is pretty sad.
Here is an academic article if you want to dive deep into the subject.
These are good examples of how fandoms can interrelate. Given the increased multiculturalism of today's world, there is more linguistic drift between fandoms, and things are no longer as segregated as they were back about 20 years ago. For instance, we can see suffixes and honorifics like -kun and -chan used directly in games like Persona now, whereas before they would have to be translated without definitions.
(For the linguistically inclined, -kun often gets rendered as "my lad" or 'm'boy" when an older person is using it, while -chan is a dimunitive like -tito in Spanish)
The -deres. These are most definitely slang terms which you need to be quite the otaku to know. They are not in common use in normal Japanese – and I know because I had to define them to a Japanese friend of mine (some others knew them though, which led to much hilarity ensuing)
In general, Wikipedia will give you complete answers, but it tends to be technical and dry, unlike my articles, which are short and entertaining (I hope!) But jokes aside, I typically don't go very deep in short pieces like this one.
Why do most mecha anime main characters have no Dads?
Mecha anime had its golden age in the 80s – also coinciding with the zenith of Japan's bubble economy. So fathers were out working a lot, and since the target audience tended to be 15-30s males…well, it wouldn't make sense to create characters that they couldn't relate to, would it?
While this trend is not as prevalent as in the 80s, it's still around, and for much of the same reasons. Anime is a cultural product of its country, and socioeconomics affect it like just everything else.
(While I don't read this often, it's around - Animemonics)
Why do Japanese schoolgirls always wear "sailor uniforms"?
Believe it or not, that's actually normal attire for Japanese schools. I can still remember one day when Japanese students visited my high school and one of my classmates went around saying "they look like they're in Sailor Moon!"
Yes, they do actually wear sailor fuku, although usually much longer and showing much less skin. Google for reference. And the boys do actually wear the suits called gakuran. Both are modelled on European naval styles dating back 150 years.
Why do certain mythological terms keep on cropping up in anime?
Amaterasu, Susanoo, Orochi…betcha didn't know they WERE names from Japanese folklore, now didya? I snuck this in here so I wouldn't have to write a separate article about it…though you never know, I just might!
And obviously being from Japan, you would expect there to be a lot of mythological references in anime!
Here is a pretty decent article on the subject
Key Mythological Figures
Susanoo: The younger brother of Amaterasu, goddess of the sun and mythical ancestress of the Japanese imperial line, he is a multifaceted deity with contradictory characteristics (both good and bad), being portrayed in various stories either as a wild, impetuous god associated with the sea and storms, as a heroic figure who killed a monstrous serpent, or as a local deity linked with the harvest and agriculture (from Wikipedia)
The various versions of Susanoo are why you see him portrayed in various ways, from the huge chakra being in Naruto to a cyborg ninja in Blazblue. But he's generally associated with strength and power in various guises.
Susanoo in Okami is perhaps the most true to his actual mythological roots, seeing as the game is about Japanese mythology.
Amaterasu: She is the goddess of the sun ("the shining heavens", literally) and the principal deity of the Shinto religion.
She is still worshipped today, with many shrines to her in various locales in Japan.
Orochi: Yamata no Orochi or simply Orochi is a legendary eight-headed and eight-tailed dragon or serpent. It is fought by Susanoo (see above) who saves a village girl from being sacrificed to it by tricking it into drinking wine so that he can slay it more easily.
It's interesting to note that there are many parallels in folktales all around the world – the trope of a wily warrior overcome a monstrous foe is quite common, as is a storm god facing off against a serpent of some kind (Thor vs Jormugandr etc)
I direct interested parties to The Morphology of the Folktale and the ATU index, though those are definitely more academic in nature and scope.
What are those teardrop shaped beads I keep seeing?
They're called Magatama. They've been around since Japanese prehistory, 300 to 400 AD. "Maga" is curved, and "tama" is soul or spirit.
Like the author of this piece says, I also think there is definitely some connection between their shape and that of the yin-yang symbol.
Magatama have been traditionally used as symbols of good fortune and to ward off evil, which is why you see so many supernatural anime use them. They are pretty ubiquitous talismans, similar to a cross in Western cultures.
What's with all the spiky hair?
So this is a really excellent article series which sheds a lot of light on some of these queries.
The Buddhist's guide to Asura's Wrath! You can see that the ancient statues of Buddhist deities look like the DBZ characters – although that should really be the other way around. In Buddhism there are "kishin" (fierce deities) as well as vajra, benevolent deities and wargods which generally kick a lot of ass in the name of good…sound familiar?
Also, spiky hair is a good way to make characters stand out, and anime is generally a exaggerated art style.
Those are just some of the more commonly asked questions I've found that anime fans have.
If you don't already know, ANN has a pretty good article column about anime facts all and sundry.