What even constitutes self-improvement for an Otaku?
Napoleon Hill is called a scammer or conman by some people, some (American) Christians have called him an occultist, and yet many have also claimed that his 1937 book helped them make money with their business and services. I don’t think that any of these things are mutually exclusive.
I have read other more modern self-help books like Atomic Habits, How to Make Friends and Influence People, and even Mark Manson’s Models, and although I learned some things, I felt like following the advice in these books would make for a very boring, clean-cut person, and would take me away from my otaku-ness. Many of these books, by American writers, are just the Protestant Ethic repackaged for an irreligious audience.
To cut a long story short, what Think and Grow Rich has in common with otaku media is the belief in unbounded optimism through delusion. I think many Western otaku who get into anime looking for something different from the usual shallow Hollywood movie happy ending end up misguided and cynical, thinking that storytelling is realistic only when it is dark and pessimistic, and looking down on certain anime as “power fantasies” with “self-insert protagonists.” These terms are nothing but thought-killing cliches which are ever only selectively applied and so are ever meaningless.
They muse that “such things happen only in anime,” by which, of course, they mean: “why doesn’t such a convenient development happen to me? Wtf I hate this anime now,” and so, as the saying goes, they miss the forest for the trees, by projecting their personal issues on the anime. Some go so far as to blame the anime for “misleading the youth” by which, of course, they mean to blame the mistakes of their own youth on anime. The tragic thing about this is that anime, and all art at its best, only seeks to lift their souls, which are bound by the gravity of social expectations.
However, if we don’t look beyond who or what is to blame, there will be no way to move forward, so let me briefly explain who is not to blame for this misreading. Anime creators are artists; they can only show you an ideal, not write a guide on how you should live your life. If you doubt this, look at any educational manga that seeks to teach you X or Y skill. If they are short, they are bearable, but any medium- to long narrative that vomits practical information is going to grow formulaic pretty fast. In short, it is not the otaku media creator’s job to tell you how to live. Is it the reader, then, who is to blame for looking at art in an overly simplistic way, as if to teach them how to live? No, because they didn’t know any better, so they cannot be blamed either.
Then is it society’s fault for letting individuals drift away with no guidance to the point where they seek to find out how to live from fiction? No, because even when society seeks to socialise its members in a controlling way, it is incentivised to educate them in a way that is beneficial to its growth and status quo rather than the individual’s wellbeing at the expense of these things. What I mean by this is that, for example, as a man, it might be better for you to take risks. Still, having many men who break social rules does not necessarily benefit society. It can lead to chaos, so instead, socialisation is geared towards creating all sorts of anxieties and fears of failure. Men turn towards a path which leads to neither riches nor happiness in an attempt to attain some security and certainty, rather than gaining the courage to tolerate uncertainty. Thus, fear and pessimism become the order of the day. The fatalism of the ancient Greeks, with nothing of their strength. This is what hides behind modern notions of personal success.
What does success mean for an otaku? Is it to become an otaku creator to create yet more works like those which inspired them? No, because if that were the case, then there could be only a few successful otaku who would at any rate subsist parasitically (i.e. parasocially – it’s the same thing) from selling their art to the majority of those otaku who can’t or won’t be successful artists, selling what for the audience is a “lie” which is unhealthy for them.
Is success as an otaku then saying “no” to all social expectations of success and becoming a social failure? No, and not because it would be a “negative reaction,” because why would that matter if it’s a negative if it’s against something which is not healthy? But rather because it’s just transparently rebranding defeat as victory, a fragile state of mind which is liable to be broken apart by something as mundane as seeing a young couple walking outside, which may be why this type of otaku ends up as a NEET (notwithstanding any actual mental health conditions ofc). For this same reason, escaping from material reality into dreams of delusions is also not really successful as an otaku. As impressive as anime is, watching anime is not a spiritual experience. It won’t let you escape from the bounds of material reality into some higher world. Once the runtime ends, no matter how great a masterpiece it is that you watched, that feeling of satisfaction will gradually go away, and since you will be spending more time not watching anime rather than watching anime, no matter how hardcore you are, this is not a sustainable feeling. In fact, it is an attempt to sustain this unsustainable mind state, which leads some to watch thousands of anime series but to understand nothing.
This finally gives us a hint about what success consists of as an otaku. An otaku cannot be a generalist who jumps from one anime to another and passes superficial judgment like a film critic; obsession needs to be specific and focused. It’s fine and good if you haven’t even watched a thousand anime series to look around for what’s there, but beyond that point, rather than trying to build the perfect anime list, which is a Sisyphean task that can never be completed, you should find the one anime (or otaku creation), which for you, embodies the best of all. This is not so that you have to spend the rest of your life as a cheerleader, venerating someone else’s creation, or create a cheap copy in the most likely vain hope of being able to create a better imitation.
I am not going to reveal what that work is for me because it is too personal; in fact, I would advise you to do the same. It can be something which is generally considered to be great, but it’s more important what you feel. However, you shouldn’t seek validation for your opinion from others, including by putting down other people’s favourites; it just shows you are insecure in your tastes and are desperate for attention.
The next step is crucial: Make it a ritual to rewatch that anime every day, and reflect on why it is that it appealed to you. You can write your analysis down if you want, but don’t fool yourself into thinking you have noticed everything. So much of so-called analysis is done to forget a work, as in “This is all there is to say about this work, now let’s file it away, and get excited for the next product.” Repetition is the mother of learning, and so if it’s really as great as you thought, then you will not get sick of it. Eventually, you will most likely find another favourite, but by that point, you will have learned a lot more about the work and about yourself.
I got this idea from reading about Bob Proctor, a motivational speaker who claimed to have read Napoleon Hill’s book every day for most of his life. I just started my third re-read of Think and Grow Rich myself, and although I am not going to mention the anime, which I am also rewatching, the messages from both are connected. There may or may not be something unique about this book. I have been inspired by books before without making much change to my life, but the point is rereading the text itself and seeing if it will have the desired effect. I guess the first thing which I liked about the book is the shamelessness of the title itself. That is otaku-like. There are other things which I liked, like the idea of an “imaginary council,” which is also very otaku-like.
This is an experiment in repetition; even I don’t know what success as an otaku means, and maybe there is no such thing. However, I don’t think it is something which can be determined through arguing about it in an essay. It’s something that I need to do to see if it will create a change in my mindset or not. The first quote I want to share from the book is this:
“When Henley wrote the prophetic lines, “I am the Master of my Fate, I am the Captain of my Soul,” he should have informed us that we are the Masters of our Fate, the Captains of our Souls, because we have the power to control our thoughts.” – Introduction, page 37.
