What is the difference between general enjoyment of a work and an otaku enjoyment?

Currently into “Heisei Kamen Rider” “Fate and BTS”, “Twisted Wonderland”

For the second part, I would like to jump out of Touhou and ask you about your otaku stories. First of all, please tell us about the works and genres you’re into at the moment.

Hotaru: Lately I’m addicted to Heisei Kamen Rider. I’ve started watching from a roulette title, and now I’m watching Kuuga. A friend of mine told me to hurry up and watch “Kamen Rider Zi-O: Over Quartzer” because it was a fresh movie, so I went to see it, and from there I went crazy. I’ve immediately joined the Toei Tokusatsu Fan Club.

The way you get hooked is brilliant…!

Hotaru: Maybe it’s a bit of a distorted way of enjoying the story, but it seems to be difficult to follow the story to the end in the same way as it was originally intended because of the adult nature of Heisei Kamen Rider. I really like the timing of selling toys and all kinds of other things, but also the fact that they are making up the story and they are struggling to live in the moment. Like “I’m sure this character was supposed to look like this, but they changed it”. Especially now, that they had to take a break from filming due to the Coronavirus. So the toys were already on sale before they appeared on the TV show. I guess the release schedule can’t be changed… It’s a difficult problem, but that’s the situation, so when I see that it makes sense in the story, it makes me happy and I’m like “Amazing! (high pitched voice)”.

Ranko: During my quarantine, I suddenly got into BTS [*]. My friend of 20 years suddenly gave me a presentation and told me, “Hey, watch this” and I started casually watching it, and then… well. It was my end. I’ll give you the presentation if you’d like! (stands up)

[*] BTS: A Korean male hip-hop group that debuted on June 13, 2013. In 2019, they won the Billboard Music Awards for Best Duo/Group and Best Social Artist.

Hotaru: The otaku will be standing soon!

Ranko: That’s when I got interested in Korean and started studying it (laughs). There was actually going to be a Touhou event in Korea in July, and BUTAOTOME was supposed to be there too, but that was ruined by the corona.

You greeted in Korean in the video letter for the Touhou event “Houraisai” from the other day. That was a skill you got from BTS, right?

Ranko: High school students were hooked on western music and movies and learned to speak English, right? At the time I wasn’t interested in foreign cultures at all… it was a waste of time. I wanted an English-speaking recommendation.

Then, in the last year or so, I suddenly got into Fate. I originally liked Aimer, and her song “I beg you” is the theme song for the movie “Fate/stay night [Heaven’s Feel] II.lost butterfly”. I first listened to the song on its own and thought, “It’s a really good song, but I’ll probably have to watch the movie to understand it properly. But since this is the second movie, I’ll have to watch the first one first, and then the anime…” and I started to worry about that.
So when I asked my friend who likes Fate “What should I watch first?”, they said, “Start with the PC game, I’ll lend you it” (laughs). (laughs) For a week after I borrowed the game, I almost didn’t sleep.

Sakiko: Otaku don’t sleep (laughs)

Ranko: I needed to see the rest of the story, otherwise I won’t have felt better and I won’t have been able to sleep.

Sakiko: I’m currently into Twisted-Wonderland [*].

[*] Disney: Twisted-Wonderland: a Japanese smartphone app produced by Aniplex and Walt Disney Japan, described as a “villains academy adventure game”. In this story, the protagonist is summoned to another world, “Twisted Wonderland,” and goes to a prestigious mage training school, “Night Ravens College,” where they try to find their way back to their way home while being at the mercy of a group of talented but uncooperative and troubled students, all of whom have motifs of the villains from the Disney movies. The original idea, main scenario, and character design are by mangaka Yana Toboso.

Ranko&Hotaru: There it is!!

Ranko: I thought there was definitely one! Who is your favorite?

Sakiko: Oh no… Twisted-Wonderland came after a long time. My favorites are the 3 boys from Octavinelle house. I’m basically a box-pusher.

I know Twisted Wonderland, because I play it too.

Sakiko: Who is your favorite?

Every time the main story is updated, my favorite changes… sorry for being a poser.

Sakiko: No, that’s fine! (right hand forward)

Ranko: Because that’s what being a works of art otaku is all about! (right hand forward)

Hotaru: You know what to do! (right hand forward)

Sakiko: I’m embarrassed to say this, but at first I thought it was Disney’s April Fool’s joke or something. “No way is that game coming out!”, I thought. Then the game was actually released and a few of my friends were playing it, so I thought it would be fun to start.
Twisted-Wonderland’s scenario is very…what can I say about it? It’s sloppy and the characters are so human. In a typical scenario, if the other person apologizes and says “I’m sorry”, you’d forgive them and say “it’s OK”, but in Twisted-Wonderland, you’d say “forgive me!”, and it’s good to be able to do that.

It’s perfectly malicious, isn’t it?

Sakiko: Because they have villain motifs.

When the 3 of them entered the Internet, and their awakening as otaku

I would also like to ask you to recall when the three of you entered the Internet.

Hotaru: My first internet experience was writing on a drawing BBS, then I made an illustration site on a website builder, hosted an off-line meeting……

Sakiko: …fufu (laughs)

Hotaru: What’s wrong? …ah, stop with that story!

What’s happening? (laughs)

Hotaru: My first username was really too chuunibyou-ish (laughs). It was “Iron Maiden” (哀暗明電) written with the kanji of sorrow, dark, bright and electric.

Hotaru: At the beginning of my creative process, I was working on a magazine at school with a group of volunteers from my class.

Ranko: Aaah, that’s what a doujinshi is.

Hotaru: Well, but the contents were like a primary creation of mini characters. They were a bit like Hamtaro or Pikachu. There were about four of us making a collab book a month. The first derivative work was about Pokémon. I drew Misty and co.

Of course, at the time it wasn’t really about creating a derivative work, it was more about imitating the work you liked.

Hotaru: Yes. And… well, at the time, an anthology was on sale in bookstores. I think it was “Pokémon 4koma Battle!” or something like that. But now that I think about it, it was really doujin. Bookstore anthologies were really sinful.

Ranko: Back then, they sold some pretty last-minute ones.

Hotaru: It’s amazing, and the pairings on the list are so disparate, it’s hard to imagine nowadays. That’s why we grow up as omnivorous otaku!

Sakiko: You can’t say it’s a land mine.

Hotaru: The idea of putting it in your mouth once and then thinking about it… well, it was a good time… or maybe it was the dawn of time, so we could do it.

Sakiko: There’s been too much of an environment for otaku to grow up in.

Hotaru: My brother was also an otaku and we used to talk about manga together, but looking back on it now, I think the parting of the ways was when the idea of pairings came into my mind. I liked Ash x Misty, and when I told my brother about it, he was like, “Huh…? Like, he was less responsive than usual, and I thought, oh well. Maybe it’s only the derivative works otaku who bring in the pairing consciousness.

Ranko: I started with Pop’n’Music. When I was in the first year of junior high school, I made a Pop’n’Music doujin site with my sister. That’s when I went to my first Comiket, too. I liked Smile, the bass player in the Youkai Band (Deuil).

Hotaru: I don’t know a woman who wouldn’t like him!

Ranko: I used to like Sha Gojyo from “Saiyuki” before that, but when I think about it, after I fell in love with Pop’n’Music, I started thinking about things like, “How tall is this character?”. That could have been the beginning of my otaku phase. From there, I thought about “I wonder how these people usually live their lives.”, and I moved on derivative works.

Hotaru: There’s a huge amount of blank space in Pop’n’Music, so it’s worth making derivative works.

Ranko: That’s a bit like Touhou. There are a lot of characters, but they aren’t described in that much detail, like who has a connection to who or what. Like “I can only imagine what this one picture would look like!”.

Sakiko: You kept fighting for one picture, right?

Ranko: I kept fighting.

Sakiko: Like “A new picture has arrived…!?”. They worked hard on one picture and ate it up.

Ranko: Eh, are we talking about Hypnosis Mic!? (laughs)

Hotaru: But the more blank spaces there are, the more super fun I have. It’s so much fun to imagine.

Sakiko: You’re already a otaku for thinking “it’s fun to have blank space”.

Sakiko, you said that Animage was what brought you into the otaku world, but can you tell us more about how you got into the Internet?

Sakiko: I first joined the Internet when I was in elementary school and setting up a BBS among my friends was very popular. Then I went to FumiComu. It has a beautiful design now, but back then it was a lot pinker. It was a site where kids from fifth grade to eighth grade would get together and post things like, “Looking for a writing partner” or “Looking for mates who like MiniMoni”.
From there, I went to Oekaki chats and things like that, and the people I became friends with there were creating their own personal websites, so I started to get into that side of things… Like that.

Was your hardware a PC?

Sakiko: Yes, I was occupied because it was like the computer at home = my own computer.

Hotaru: I used to type HTML tags. I bought a thick book with lots of tags in it.

Girls of a certain generation have a deep knowledge of HTML for some reason, don’t they?

Ranko: It’s a reveal, isn’t it?

Sakiko: Yes, the first dream fiction I made was about “Full Metal Alchemist”. And then I showed it to the kids in my class and so on… and now that I think about it, it was really bad! Every few years I remember it and it kills me. I’m so glad GeoCities [*] is gone!

[*] Yahoo! GeoCities: A free website offering space formerly operated by Yahoo! in America and Yahoo! JAPAN in Japan. It was the largest free website space service and was used by many of the Internet communities in the 2000s. In March 2019, the service was regrettably discontinued after Yahoo! JAPAN determined that it was unprofitable and unsustainable, and many of the sites that were made with GeoCities have disappeared from the Internet.

Ranko: Everyone’s dark past has been erased, hasn’t it?

Sakiko: Now I can sleep peacefully (laughs).

I want to send giant emotions!

You girls are usually activists, but I’d like to delve into your side as otaku who are fan of someone else. There was a tweet from Ranko that said she sent a fan letter to an author, are you all the type of people who go to take action against their creators?

Ranko: I do it relatively. In the Touhou genre, it’s difficult because I’m also active in it, so I might make them feel uncomfortable.

Hotaru: I got it. I’m watching the Touhou works quietly.

Ranko: As long as you don’t do Touhou, and you’re simply a creator of derivative works of something I like, I’ll send you a message or comment on it. I want to send giant emotions anyway. I want to tell them “Your novels have made my mind such a mess!!!”

From the creator’s point of view, this is a blessing in disguise.

Ranko: When it comes time to write, I think, “Aren’t I being incredibly weird for sending these giant emotions out of nowhere…?”, but it can be a bit of a step (laughs).

Hotaru: I guess I’m more likely to send them through the so-called DM function, not as a public comment. I sometimes use a completely different name, but I just want to thank them. Thank you for bringing this work into the world, and yet, thank you for making it available to the public. As in, “Excuse my rudeness”.

Sakiko: I don’t need a reply. I just want to send something to you.

Hotaru: Yes! Also, if I see an author asking for requests, I’ll write down my thoughts on it and send them a very long note saying, “I’d like to read this one of yours, but if you can’t, that’s totally fine”. If it’s a close friend or similar, I’ll give them a handwritten letter if possible.

Regardless of Touhou, there have been a lot of instances lately where creators have received anonymous, heartless comments on Marshmallow and other question box websites and hurt them. But essentially, I think we should be grateful for the fact that we can see their works for free.

Ranko: I need your account number! We’ll wire it in!

Sakiko: I don’t want to make myself known as much as possible in the Touhou world. Because if their work is the best, I’ll love the writer. And I don’t want the people I like to know who I am, so I only buy on the Internet. I don’t want to meet them face to face. If they don’t want to sell something in shops, or it’s limited to a certain event… I just go to the event, say “onecopyofthisplease” and leave immediately (laughs).
I don’t want them to stop creating because they can’t support it, so I send them my thoughts anonymously. When I write my thoughts, I despair because I don’t have too much of a vocabulary for the emotions I want to convey. I want to convey this nuance, but this is probably not the right word, and this doesn’t get my point across to them. In desperation, I suddenly start reading and studying books and stuff. That’s how I write a monstrous sentence starting with “nice to meet you, I’m sorry for the long review” and send it, but I never introduce myself.

There was a saying for a while that “you have to support an artist when you can”, but writers need to do it, too.