News from Otakuland

According to the latest reports, the Otaku Object of Desire (hereafter referred to as the “OOD”) has now morphed from girls wearing eyeglasses and surgical masks to girls wearing eye patches and bandages:

A female cosplayer the weekly describes only as S explains the appeal of swathing herself in bindings.

“When you’re covered in bandages, everybody pays attention to you and worries about you. They also provide a chance to start talking to guys, who’ll ask you how you hurt yourself, so the bandages are really, really good,” she tells Weekly Playboy. “One guy into the injured woman look told me that the reason he likes it is because he loves the idea of seeing a thin woman’s body wrapped in bandages because it looked kind of like bondage and made him want to protect her from harm. I think those wearing the bandages get on well with the guys who want to look after them because they don’t want them to get hurt.”

I sort of get it, but I sort of don’t. What I don’t get are the eye patches. Eye patches just make me think of pirates. Are pirates attractive? I don’t know. I also get the sense that if guys started wrapping themselves up like mummies it wouldn’t go over with the ladies too well. But then again, what do I know?

What I do know is that otaku are exploring uncharted waters in the realm of human relationships, or lack thereof. They’ve created a kind of vast human laboratory where life imitates art with an unprecedented hermeticism. It’s a psychology we would all do well to understand because, for better or worse, it’s probably the future of humanity.

Meanwhile, they’re also doing strange things with their fuel tank doors.