Otaku dictionary

Konichiwa,

First of all I wanna say I'm not an Otaku (at least not yet). I'm a cosplayer, but I'm used to some words of this culture unknown but a lot of people. Words to save your life in front of Otakus here in my pocket dictionary. 

* Anime: are Japanese animated productions, and come in formats like tv series, special episodes, OVAs, ONAs and movies. Anime is produced for different kind of publics and touch every (or almost every) subject. The anime esthetic is also used in some videogames, commercials...

Sakura Card Captor
Chibi

* Manga: are comics created in Japan or by Japanese creators in their native language, conforming to a style developed in the late 19th century. Manga are usually serialized in large manga magazines, often containing many stories, each presented in a single episode to be continued in the next issue. The manga stories can later be adapted to anime, not animated series, video-games, movies and soap operas. 

* Ova: Original video animation. Are animated films and series made specially for release in home-video formats. Like anime made for television broadcast, OVAs sub-divide into episodes. OVA media (tapes, laserdiscs, or DVDs) usually contain just one episode each. Episode length varies from title to title. 

* Chibi:  A child, baby or childish representation of a manga or anime character. A chibi version is usually used for funny purposes. They are usually really cute, talk with kid's voice, and have bigger eyes and a naughtier personality than the original character.

Cosplay. Example of a
 Female to Male Crossplay

* Cosplay: From 'Costume Play' is used to describe japanese fiction characters representation, most specifically anime, manga and videogames (but actually refers also to the representation of occidental entertainment products like: series, movies and video games). For this activity, people that do cosplay (called Cosplayers) use costumes like the outfits that the choosen character usually wear. 

* Crossplay: A type of Cosplay in which the person dresses up as a character of a different gender (There are other types of Cosplay I'll explain in other post). Can be male to female (A man trying to represent a woman and all the character caracteristics even to the point of being confused with a peson of the other gender), that also happens with female to male (Woman playing a man character). There's also  crossplay genderplay that is an exagerated drag that wants to be a funny parody of a character.

* Fanart or Fan Art: Art pieces based on characters, locations, outfits or any other elements of a fictional universe created by a third one. They use elements of stories that usually belong the mass medias and communication media ( television, books, videogames, anime...). Fan art goes from sketchs and draws to complete mangas, video-games and animations. 

* Hentai: Is a word used to describe a 'pervert'. But is also used to refer to the manga and anime pornografic gender. Have a lot of sub-genders, one of the most known is ecchi (with low sex content).  

* Kawaii: Is the quality of cuteness in the context of Japanese culture. It has become a prominent aspect of Japanese popular culture, entertainment, clothing, food, toys, personal appearance, behavior, and mannerisms.

Gothic Lolita
dresses

*Sugoi: This word is frequently used to refer to an awesome or great thing. Is a way of exclamation, so is used to show excitement about something. As the world Kawaii, it had been added to the Otaku vocabulary for the high presence of it on anime and other japanese products. 

* Lolita: Is a fashion subculture originated in Japan that is based on Victorian-era clothing as well as costumes from the Rococo period, but the style has expanded greatly beyond Japan. There are a lot of lolita styles including gothic lolita and sweet lolita. Lolitas are not the same as cosplayers. They wear they outfits even in their cotidianity and they don't 'play a character'. A lolita can do cosplays and a cosplayer can play characters with lolita style, but they are NOT the same.  

Ohhh, and obviously, we have to know what does it means to be an Otaku: In Japan  is used to refer to people with obsessive interests;  outside of Japan is mainly used to call fans of the japanese popular culture. One of the main interest of Otakus is the Anime, but they can also be interested in other aspects of japanese culture like the language, martial arts, video-games, music...