Otacool
Apologies for a prolonged absence, but I’m in the middle of some crazy rotations in med school. Free time is a rare luxury now for sure. It might be a few more weeks until my next post, so this is a quick update to let people know where I’m at. Plus I’ll share this neat book I just picked up.
Otacool is a DannyChoo production featuring otaku rooms from all around the world. The vast majority of the rooms are anime and figurine focused. I’m only superficially into anime and don’t like figures at all, but I always find it fascinating to see how passion in hobbies can transform our living spaces. The ultimate example of this, of course, is on the grandest scale — Akihabara in Tokyo, an entire district taken over by otaku culture. I’ve been to Akiba several times and am endlessly enchanted by that destination.
I dream of designing a gaming room when I move into my own house at some point and have been slowly collecting source material for inspiration. Although the rooms in this book are mostly opportunities to show off vast collections of manga volumes or figures rather than any serious attempt at design, they’re still neat to see. I tried taking photos of pages from the book, but it was difficult to lay the book flat for clean photos without destroying the spine. Here’s a few page examples directly from DannyChoo below.
(on a related note, this Korean Star Wars fan has done a great job of integrating his hobby into his house. Of course there are the requisite masses of merchandise scattered everywhere, but he has a couple clean, classy and stylish rooms)
Filipino celebrity cosplayer Alodia Gosiengfiao
Aliens diehard fan
Good representative of the typical anime/manga/figures fan
Danny Choo himself
Do you keep your hobbies close to the heart and let them influence your room(s)? Or do you think themed rooms are embarrassing? The key to success (and tolerance by other people) is to keep it classy.
UPDATE: More photos of book pages (way at the bottom, after lots of photos about promoting the book)
