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Kagerou Project

Vocaloid’s fandom evolves beyond the music and becomes the face of young Japanese otaku

Last month, we posted an article capturing the changes in anime art style over time. These adjustments in overall style can come on so slowly, but when laid out side-by-side, they become so blatantly apparent, it’s amazing that such a large breadth of drawing styles could all come under the umbrella of Japanese anime. It would seem that with every passing decade there comes an attraction to a different art style.

In the special interest magazine, Febri volume 19, there is an interesting report called Portrait of a Modern Otaku, which classifies these trends in popular Japanese anime according to “generations,” starting with Space Battleship Yamato and all of its fans falling into generation one. Generation two is represented by Gundam, while fans born of Evangelion and erotic dating simulators belong to generation three. Today’s twenty-somethings likely identify with the fourth generation of fans frontlined by The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. And finally, the youngest bunch, teenagers and below are classified together with none other than Kagerou Project.

But wait. How could it be that an offshoot of Vocaloid, the computer voice simulator, is the poster child for this most recent generation of otaku? The development of Vocaloid fandom itself, holds the answers.

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Twitter user names Japan’s three worst fandoms

Whenever fans of a particular thing gather, there are bound to be some people who act out and reflect badly on the rest of the group. Usually, these people are the outliers, largely ignored by the majority of the fans. However, some select fandoms seem to attract a disproportionate number of bad-mannered crazies and develop a terrible reputation on the whole. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a comic, anime, movie, musician or a sports team at the source, I’m sure there’s at least one fandom for which you can relate.

Japan certainly has its fair share of obsessive fan bases. One Twitter user decided to put together a graphic for the country’s three worst offenders and their reasons why. Now, while we don’t want to over generalize and say that everyone in these fandoms is as rude as described, we can certainly see where they’re coming from…

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