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Originally Posted by Senshi
I'm American, so I can't speak from a Norweign POV.
From my experience, I was an otaku 4 or 5 years. It was one of the main ways I had to study Japanese.
In the U.S. it has a sorta cult sub-culture status, and otakus are sorta ridiculed because anime used to be VERY expensive to obtain and many wouldn't be dubbed, so you needed time, money, and persistence to understand it. Hence it's seen as nerdy, although anime is much more popular now, it still has some stigma.
From what I've seen a lot of otaku can scare Japanese away because in Japan otaku has a negative connotation. It's not seen as a good thing. For a lot of otakus that can be surprising, because they REALLY love Japan and support it. So there's an amount of cultural dissonance when you're rejected for trying to be too Japanese, or seeming like an out-of-the-ordinary foreigner.
This is the reason I talked about confidence. I know from meeting a lot of otakus, and having been one that there is some psychology involved, but that can be overcome if the person is genuine and open-minded. Eventually you find some nice people even if you are mistreated.
This is all from an American perspective again, so it's no to say your otaku community is the same, but in general a lot of otakus, especially before their mid-20s are like this in America.
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Hm, I don't know that many Norwegians watching anime actually, so I guess there are some hardcore nerds sitting inside 24/7 here with low self confidence.
Ah, I know about being an otaku in Japan aint necessarily a good ting. That was the first thing I was told when I started watching anime, that it's the same in norway. Being an otaku, using all your time and money on anime and manga aint cool, and it will never be.