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Originally Posted by Ledgem
Your usage of the term "Otaku culture" was interesting. There aren't many cultures that are accepting of mental illness. The only ones that I can think of didn't understand what mental illness was, and perceived it as something supernatural (which they didn't always perceive as a bad thing) or as a manifestation of a physical illness. You mention Western culture as not being accepting of mental illness, but it's much the same in Asian culture.
Otaku culture is an interesting differentiator. I don't have solid grounds for this generalization, but it seems that many of the people who work in the anime industry are anime fans, as well (or at least, they have a similar personality). In other words, in some ways it's a culture born of social isolation, emotional suffering from not fitting in (depression), and creativity. Is it any surprise that such a culture would be more understanding and empathetic toward the traits that it's derived from?
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Yes, I mentioned Otaku culture specifically for a reason. If we look at more mainstream Anime, or other Japanese products the understanding of mental illness is if anything worse then western culture. But Otaku products, to my mind, "get" mental illness (in particular depression and social anxiety), and many an anime either is wish fulfilment for the socially isolated (thinking many Moé titles here), or riffing on it in a black comedy way.
By contrast, I don't find western "Nerd" culture to really "get" mental illness at all. Western stuff tends to be ultimately quite normative, and you rarely get the explorations of alternative lifestyles you see in Otaku literature.
The only thing I find in our own culture that ever "gets" mental illness is arthouse cinema, but it's inevitably warped by the "tortured artist" angle of things, and it ends out being a bit glorified.
I think Otaku stuff might be able to do it because it is an industry quite tied to it's own fans, and unlike western "nerd" stuff, the subject matters available are more varied (and it's not
just unrealistic male power fantasies, like western comics, but also unrealistic male romantic fantasies).
It's one of the reasons I was quite drawn to Anime in my youth. I watched Harem anime, and for the first time in my life I felt like "Hey, there's other guys out there who get really nervous talking to women! I'm not alone! Woah!" Harem comedies aren't very good, but I felt more in common with the Harem lead then I ever felt for a male lead in any teen flicks, or rom-coms.
Compare, for example, the Big Bang Theory (where nerds are just the butt of jokes about how socially incompetent they are), to, say, Welcome to the NHK, where the main character is pathetic, but treated with sympathy. I can only imagine a hefty enough percentage of the audience of that show were hikikomori themselves, after all.