/jp/ - Otaku Culture

I took two years of Japanese in community college and learned a lot online, but it's been over a year since I practiced. I put it on the backburner and I really feel demoralized with the whole process of learning it.

It takes years to learn this language and the reward for it is very small. If life is about being happy then learning Japanese seems like a mistake. It's a lot of work for very little pay off. The thing is, I love japanese music and anime and I want to be more connected to it.

ただし the more japanese I learn, the less I feel like I want to be attached to otaku subculture. It seems like a lot of otaku stuff is exclusively for autistic people and kids. If there weren't this added dimension of language learning I wouldn't even like it as much. So I imagine that people watching & listening to otaku stuff in Japan are the most childish types of people.

I've also noticed that, after spending a year or two being an otaku as an adult, I developed a lot of bad habits such as squinting when I looked at asian people, carrying myself like a japanese person in public (which looks cringey to everyone, Japanese people don't like it and Americans think it's cringey). I also started thinking in Japanese a little bit and that causes people to basically think you are the worst sort of Narutard, even if your aims in learning Japanese are genuine.

I'm posting in this thread because I could really use a boost in getting back into it. I'm beginning to remember why I started learning in the first place, but I'm afraid the effect it has on my impressionable psyche. I'm never going to fit in if I go to Japan, and I'll probably never have Japanese friends.

Someone convince me that this is a good idea.