Free Republic 3rd Qtr 2025 Fundraising Target: $81,000 Receipts & Pledges to-date: $36,789
45%  
Woo hoo!! And we're now over 45%!! Thank you all very much!! God bless.

Keyword: ultrageek

Brevity: Headers | « Text »
  • Anime, manga fuel oddball 'otaku' biz boom (cultural insights on Japan's "ultra-geek" subculture)

    07/14/2005 6:01:13 PM PDT · by DTogo · 21 replies · 1,153+ views
    Mainichi Daily News ^ | July 14, 2005 | Ryann Connell
    Dozens of grown men from their 30s to 60s crowd around the tatami mat room in Kagetsuen, a Shizuoka Prefecture ryokan inn, and begin playing with their train sets. More than 90 percent of the inn's guests are adults who enjoy playing with toy trains. These mature train setters have not only kept the inn afloat as others around it have fallen into oblivion, they've helped it grow in a prime example of the otaku business that's now booming throughout Japan, according to AERA (7/18). "Thanks to trimming down our target market, we could stay in business," Eiji Misu, Kagetsuen's...