When you love the idol life so much you become the idol.
Japan is home to all sorts of otaku. There are train, video game, and gun otaku, and while some people view them as nerdy geeks, otaku see themselves as superfans, and there’s nothing they won’t do for their obsession.
One of the largest otaku communities belongs to the world of Japanese idols, where superfans known as “wota” (a shortened from of “otaku”), pay big bucks on CDs to receive tickets to handshake parties and perform special cheering routines known as wotagei to show their dedication to their favourite performers.
While these wotagei usually consist of coordinated chants and glowstick movements performed by fans in the audience to amp up the performance occurring on stage, for some fans the cheering routine just doesn’t do justice to the swirling emotions of adulation rising from within.
Case in point is this idol otaku, who does away with the wotagei cheering routine and goes straight to performing the idol group’s dance as if he’s an idol himself.
Check out the video below:
Filmed at Higashi-Nakano in Nakano Ward, Tokyo’s second most popular otaku neighbourhood after Akihabara, the short clip shows an otaku taking the phrase “dance like nobody’s watching” to heart.
In this case, though, everyone is watching, from fellow wota in the room to the Japanese idols themselves, Wa-chan and Yuu-chan, who together make up the J-Pop group Waayuu.
▼ Wa-chan
▼ Yuu-chan
It looks like the wota with the moves is an otaku called Otogi-chan, the dance leader for their fan group, who’s known for busting out difficult moves at their events.
People online were full of praise for Otogi-chan, whose dance has since had over 2 million views, leaving comments like:
“He’s acting like more of an idol than a real idol!”
“He’s so kawaiiii!”
“I couldn’t help but lol at his amazing agility!”
“To be honest, I thought this would be bad but it turned out to be awesome.”
“Time to add a new member to the group!”
Otogi-chan does have all the agility, charisma and dance ability needed to make it as an idol, so if things ever start to go downhill for Waayuu they might want to think about adding their number-one fan as a member.
It wouldn’t be the weirdest move ever for a Japanese idol group. After all, *ChocoLate Bomb! from Jonny’s Entertainment has a handsome goat as one of their members.
Source: Jin
Images: Twitter/@umatumat
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