An otaku in transalation is a rabid enthusiast. The closest
thing we have to the word is "animation nut."

At the local Blockbuster (back when blockbuster was new around
here,) they even had a documentary of sorts called "Otaku No Video"
which means 'otakus on video'... interviews with these mostly
young professional men and their fantasy lives around the
characters.

The whole Japanese animation thing is fascinating. It'll probably
give you cool points with your kids to know about it.

In the last few years what Americans see reported about anime
is usually some muckracking about extreme scenes in some of the
... here's where I'll lose it.... theres a word for these
naughty anime that I forgot.

Anyway, at it's best, what the anime does is explore many
themes that, since Woreld War II the japanese people could not
express in art because !.) their country was destroyed and 2.)
the Marshall Plan forbade any political or cultural statemenets in art
about the bomb.

So no film industry to speak of. What was left was animation. That's
why
the _anime_ are full length feature films with themes of
nuclear destruction, saving the Earth, the the horrors and beauty
of technology and what that technology does to a people. The clearest expression of that is a film called "Akira". And there's another called "Ghost In The Shell" which has recently had a sequel.

For a direction as to where anime might be going, look for "Final Fantasy." It's in most video stores.