Otaku n. Originally derived from the Japanese term otaku-zoku, a highly formal way of saying " you . " Something like, " Oh, honored sir , " only more so . First used to describe an identifiable group of people in the late twentieth century, ironically applied to Japanese computer " nerds "— technologically brilliant but socially inept individuals who spent most of their lives shut in their darkened apartments, communicating with others only through the primitive computer networks in use at the time . Asocial and actively antisocial, the original otaku represented a considerable sociological problem for Japanese society before the turn of the century .