Are the Philippine and Indonesian Otaku communities similar?
(Originally published at Deremoe on December 24, 2014.)
The Philippine Otaku community. A thriving community filled with youthful vigor, and drama as well. We’ve been looking into this place for long, and we’ve almost accustomed ourselves into doing the things this community is doing, but have tried to look at other communities as well?
This time, we’ll talk about the Indonesian Otaku community, based on what I’ve learned after observing them for a long time. I felt that it’s been a year since I conceived this post, but this all started with a discussion I had with a fellow Symphogear fan by the name of Yuru.
Community (Drama)
I’ve learned more about the Cosplay community of Indonesia through Ahotaku alone — he’s by far the only English-speaking blog that I follow for these kinds of stuff, if not the only one in Indonesia.
If you remember the time where I talked about MikuExpo Indonesia, chances are you know I’m mentioning this guy. This guy talked about the Not-so-Good of Indonesian Cosplay (and he followed up a year after), and he covers events in the said country most of the time. If you think Cosplay scammers are much-talked in this country, think again.
Once that I get to step my feet in this country, this is the guy I’ll be sure to look forward first, no kidding.
On another hand, we might have seen a similar scenario where Indonesians hang out most of the time on Facebook — there’s Otaku Indonesia and various groups and pages relating to the Indonesian Otaku community on the said social site. Akame ga Kill! is quite popular with them as well.
Kamen Rider
Moving back to the discussion I had with Yuru, I raised the topic of BIMA Satria Garuda with her. If we are fans of Bioman or Ultraman, they are fans of the Kamen Rider series. If we Filipinos know Takeru Sato as Kenshin Himura, Indonesians know him more as a Kamen Rider.
Indonesia was blessed to have the Japanese entertainment production company Ishinomori Productions collaborating with TV station RCTI to being that series to reality, unlike in our side when GMA Network conceived Zaido: Pulis Pangkalawakan which have been among the ire of tokusatsu fans in this country — take note, it’s just Telesuccess who collaborated with GMA and not the original creators. As much as I’d like not to compare these two instances, it’s inevitable.
Otaku Media
One thing that I’m happy about the Indonesian Otaku community is that they have a lively group of people ready to bring in the news from their perspective — if you have Deremoe, AnimePH, or say, Anime Pilipinas; they have KAORI Nusantara and Jurnal Otaku Indonesia among others.
Komunitas Anime Otaku Rakyat Indonesia (KAORI) prides itself in three words: “Akurat, Independen, Merakyat,” (we understand it as “Accurate, Independent, Common”) and they deliver the news in Indonesia’s creative industry with this motto. KAORI started in 2008, and Kevin Wilyan is their frontman. (Disclaimer: Yuru is affiliated with KAORI.)
Jurnal Otaku Indonesia started on YouTube around 2012 and is now a full-fledged website — they’re pretty much active on YouTube, having posted an interview they did with BIMA’s creator Reino Barack. Both KAORI and JOI have news on traditional and popular Japanese culture; and while KAORI has their forums, JOI has their own platform called my.JOI.
What I’ve learned aside from these things include re:ON Comics (which I presume has the same following as Singapore’s Daiyaku; and our own Mangaholix when it was still alive), Doraemon (which is so common in both countries, I presume again) and the media landscape as exemplified by this article at Antara News during their election season.
Not to mention, some Japanese people also has their jobs in the country, especially Jakarta — something that even Yuuta Togashi mentioned in the second season of Chuunibyou. Also, LION’s Systema brand of dental care products has their factory in Indonesia.
I still have more to learn about the Indonesian Otaku community, but with these things stated, we can say that Indonesia is similar to the Philippines when it comes to each countries’ communities.
Let me invoke my country pride for a bit and say that some Filipino entities have already had their Indonesian steps, like Rappler and Eat Bulaga! — and we wish to have our own steps one day. Wait, is one of Mikki’s plans to go to Indonesia in the future as well? Let me do the Gendo pose then.
Thanks to Rean for pointing out that JOI doesn’t have a forum — I actually overlooked that, assuming that my.JOI is a forum of sort.
