Can a foreigner ever be an "otaku"?

"Otaku" (and certain other common, related words like "anime" or "hentai") has a different meaning in the West. Which meaning are you referring to?

>>1514680
Someone who likes anime, manga, visual novel, JRPG, etc.
Now you can re read the 2nd and 3rd paragraph of my origina post.

I agree sort of. Like the first reply pointed out "otaku" has a bit of a different meaning in the west. It would be more appropriate to say that the Western word "otaku" does not translate directly to the Japanese word "otaku". On the part of theft I believe some leeway must be given to Westerners as it's a lot harder to discretely buy or just buy the media in the west as apposed to Japan and on top of that being seen with otaku (Japanese) media in the West has a negative stigma that can be in part circumvented if legally dubious routes are taken to obtain the media.

in japan "otaku" is an insult

Smelly, dumb, virgin leeches on society with bad taste? Sounds like Japanese otaku to me.

>>1514792
In Japan ``otaku'' is a somewhat formal way to refer to someone else.

>>1514671
I think what you mean is they are definitely not 「オタク」.
But whether or not they can be "Otaku" is a gray area.

It's the same thing as 「アニメ」 vs "Anime". They are not the same thing at all. It goes both ways too, Japan borrows english words all the time and uses them in ways that are totally different from the English meaning.

So it seems we borrow Japanese words to imply that the thing we're talking about has a Japanese twist to it.
So just like anime is a "cartoon, but in the Japanese style"
and otaku in english might be a "geek, with a Japanese bend"

No, I don't think so.
The West will join poison the word like "nerd" and "geek", anyway.

It's been over 2 hours since the last post but this is still on page 1.

Yeah, this thread was stealth bumped.

>>1516887
funny because before spammers came to this board 2 hours was enough for a thread to be in one of the front pages
the fact that in only 2 hours a thread gets pushed to the end of the catalog really tells you something doesnt it

I thought otaku just means a person who is 'obsessed' with something far enough to let that thing define their life.
I don't know if this dein definition is correct, but if it is lots of western normies are otakus for things like video games and tv shows.

>>1517392
It has hugely negative connotations, although it's lessened somewhat over time.