Line #61 Main/OtakuSurrogate


1	[[quoteright:350:[[Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Haruhi_Otaku.jpg]]]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:So that's where she gets her strange ideas...]]
3	One aspect of BishoujoSeries, and the cause of many tropes such as the UnwantedHarem and an ImprobablyFemaleCast, is that you really shouldn't have too many important male characters. However, the assumed male demographic supposedly has trouble relating to female characters.
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5	So instead, why not have a girl who likes the things that they do? You may not want to use a [[{{bifauxnen}} crossdressing girl]] or even a {{tomboy}} -- just give her a FanBoy personality.
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7	A lot of this depends on what the current stereotype of a fan is and finding a fandom that is noticeably gender-skewed ({{Moe}} and HumongousMecha are popular targets) but the cast will still have ''only'' one character who is a fan of something stereotypically coded male, and especially for obscure ''older'' things the adult audience immediately recognizes.
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9	Another bonus to this is that the character's "masculine" characteristics are technically arbitrary, and easily tweaked to specific situations. Fans are very willing to put up with a lot of old tropes they wouldn't normally tolerate if the character was actually male.
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11	Contrast CosplayOtakuGirl and FanGirl. Often overlaps with GamerChick and is sometimes part of the EstrogenBrigade.
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13	----
14	!!Examples:
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16	[[foldercontrol]]
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18	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
19	* Konoha Akisato from ''Anime/SixteenBitSensationAnotherLayer'' is a zigzagged case of this. She's a huge fan of bishoujo games even though said games are typically aimed at men; however, the fact that she wants to be an illustrator for those games is TruthInTelevision, since plenty of bishoujo games have had female illustrators and character designers, including those by Creator/KeyVisualArts.
20	* Yukari Tsukino from ''Manga/AiKora'' turns out to be a member of a doujinshi circle, and is also into cosplay and video games.
21	* Kaoruko "Kaos" Moeta from ''Manga/ComicGirls'' is a high school girl, but her interests are more similar to that of adult male otaku. This is lampshaded when it's pointed out that her desk (which has figurines of female anime characters all over it) looks like it belongs to a 25-year-old man.
22	* Gabriel White Tenma from ''Manga/GabrielDropout'', once a perfect overachiever angel before she get drawn into online gaming addiction and became a full-out [[TheSlacker slacker]] otaku obsessed with an MMORPG.
23	* The title character of ''Ganota no Onna'', Ganota Utsuski, is a beautiful businesswoman and a major ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' otaku, with a particular obsession with Zeon and Char. There are a lot of other ''Gundam'' fans around and the manga has a lot of ''Gundam'' references, like her boss being Zabi Degwin.
24	* Gender-inverted in ''Manga/TheHighSchoolLifeOfAFudanshi'', where the whole point is to showcase the ''Fudanshi'' section of {{Yaoi Fan}}s, with each chapter showing how a guy like him deals with and reacts to Boys Love.
25	* Umaru Doma from ''Manga/HimoutoUmaruChan'', who isn't just an otaku but also a LazyBum, who lazes around her apartment every day while gaming and snacking on junk food; much of the media she's into is also typically aimed at a male audience, such as shonen manga and FPS games. She [[ClosetGeek hides this side of herself from the public]] and maintains a refined ProperLady image to most people, claiming she's not even allowed to read manga.
26	* ''Manga/LuckyStar'':
27	** Konata is a complete over-the-top {{otaku}}, obsessed with anime and video games, mostly to allow for [[ShoutOut mentions]] of ''Literature/HaruhiSuzumiya'', ''VideoGame/GalaxyAngelII'', ''VisualNovel/{{Shuffle}}'', [[ActorAllusion Haruhi Suzumiya]], ''VisualNovel/{{Kanon}}'', ''VisualNovel/ToHeart'', ''[[RuleOfThree Haruhi Suzumiya]]'', and so forth... but very little of what most [[{{Shoujo}} girls are expected to watch]], save for [[RuleOfFunny a notable brush with]] ''Literature/MariaWatchesOverUs'' (and a brief reference to ''Manga/WeddingPeach'' while the other girls talk about wedding dresses). This is lampshaded when Konata explains them as habits picked up to be closer to her father, although her friends then have more questions about [[DirtyOldMan her father's choice of habits]]... She also plays eroges. Y'know, the sort of videogame for men that features naked young girls.
28	** And later on in the manga, we get [[spoiler:Izumi Wakase, a {{closet otaku}} who has Konata's sports and home economics skills (average), Kagami's studying skill (average), is a class representative (Kou Yosaka's also one) but not flat and has an older brother complex]].
29	* Basically the whole point of ''Mangirl!'': [[FourGirlEnsemble four girls]] are such hardcore manga fans that they create their own manga-zine.
30	* Hikaru Amano of ''Anime/MartianSuccessorNadesico'': as big a ''Gekiganger fan'' as Akito. The English dub is even more specific: she writes SelfInsertFic-type SlashFic.
31	* The titular Kobayashi from ''Manga/MissKobayashisDragonMaid'' is the female lead of a [[{{Seinen}} male-oriented]] manga who's obsessed with maids (though she prefers real maids over [[{{Meido}} the kind typically seen in anime]], as she drunkenly derides the latter as "just cosplay"). She also has many traits you'd expect from a male protagonist ([[LadyLooksLikeADude masculine looks]], [[TheLadette stoic but hard-drinking personality]], high career status [[OneOfTheGuys in a male-dominated work environment]], [[OnlyHasSameSexAdmirers female admirers]]), likely to make her more relatable to male readers in general.
32	* Hajime of ''Manga/NewGame'' is a tomboy (who also falls into BoyishShortHair) that is a {{tokusatsu}} fan, and has a collection of model swords at her cubicle, including a ''lightsaber''.
33	* Tomoko Kuroki from ''Manga/NoMatterHowILookAtItItsYouGuysFaultImNotPopular'' is a downplayed example, since she likes anime and video games aimed at male otaku (though she has stated she detests {{Moe}}) but she also likes things aimed specifically at girls, like {{otome game}}s. However, at the same time she's also an example of this gone ''horribly wrong''; her knowledge of perverted media only makes her that much more unapproachable, and ''because'' she's so obsessed with that stuff she initially had no idea how to approach real life and real people. She's horribly antisocial and judgmental, and even her closest kin, her brother, is annoyed with her. Luckily over the course of the series, she starts to get better, but she's still the universe's ChewToy.
34	* Kaede Mizuno from ''Manga/NyanKoi'' loves anything yakuza-related. A subversion on her part, since we're led to believe she's a {{Moe}} girl.
35	* Noah Izumi from ''Franchise/{{Patlabor}}'' is a borderline example. She loves Mecha -- but in a very different way from most otaku. Polishing her Labor, naming it Alphonse, writing "This Labor is Mine" on its leg at one point, smiting an enemy mecha with her robot's severed arm as [[CallingYourAttacks yelling]] "[[RocketPunch ROCKETTO]] ''[[Anime/MazingerZ PAUNCH!]]''"...
36	* Morinas in ''Anime/{{Simoun}}'' is a total Simoun otaku, who makes plastic models in her spare time is even planning to be male after [[GenderBender going to the Spring]].
37	* In ''Manga/StrawberryMarshmallow'', Nobue is jokingly described by fans as the Otaku Surrogate of manga author Barasui, due to her much mellower personality and tendency to hug little girls.
38	* Saiko Yonebayashi in ''Manga/TokyoGhoul[=:Re=]''. Her bedroom is plastered with anime posters and figures, and she would rather spend her days playing video games or goofing off online than doing her job as a Ghoul Investigator. In an omake, her introduction to her new mentor was a speech bubble taking up the entire panel, listing off her various geek-related interests. As the resident Otaku, she is a constant source of {{Shout Out}}s.
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41	[[folder:Literature]]
42	* ''Literature/{{Haganai}}'':
43	** Sena Kashiwazaki enjoys dating sims that are clearly aimed at straight men and is usually seen playing them in the club room, though she claims it's because she has no female friends in real life and gal games allow her to get close to female characters.
44	** Rika is a more extreme case with her love for mecha porn doujin...though by "mecha porn," we literally mean porn involving mecha having sex.
45	* Haruka of ''Literature/HarukaNogizakasSecret''--beautiful, popular, and... an otaku (the eponymous secret).
46	* ''Literature/NyarukoCrawlingWithLove'' has two of them, the titular Nyarko being an {{Anime}} and {{Toku}} fangirl while Cuuko is a GamerChick; distracting them is as easy as luring them through an anime shop and waiting for them to spot a limited edition figure to fight over.
47	* Kirino from ''Literature/{{Oreimo}}'' is a closet middle-schooler otaku and a popular fashion model. Kuroneko and Saori are these, too--little wonder they met in an online community called "Otaku Girls Unite". However, though Kirino is mainly into H-games that are obviously aimed at a male demographic, she's also a big fan of ShowWithinAShow ''Stardust Witch Meruru'', which is a MagicalGirl anime [[PeripheryDemographic primarily]] aimed at young girls.
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50	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
51	* ''Series/{{Beetleborgs}}'': Josephine "Jo" [=McCormick=] is one of the three typical average kids who love to read comic strips.
52	* ''Franchise/{{Degrassi}}'' teacher Mr. Simpson says, "Toby Isaacs, meet Kendra Mason, my biggest anime fanatics."
53	* Wendy Watson in ''Series/TheMiddleman'' knows a great deal about sci-fi and comic books, especially years-old series with predominantly male fandoms.
54	* ''Series/SeventhHeaven'''s Simon was going to get his first kiss from a pretty and experienced girl but when they were supposed to be kissing they started talking about comic books.
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57	[[folder:Video Games]]
58	* Midori Komaki of ''Shin Megami Tensei: VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'' is an otaku who spends the entire game dressed in cosplay (she is stuck in the costume due to the lock down, but she states doesn't mind), and often acts as a MagicalGirl in a setting [[WrongGenreSavvy where society is breaking down and innocent people are being murdered by demons]].
59	* Xiaomu from ''VideoGame/NamcoXCapcom'' is this, to the point that she carries it over to ''VideoGame/EndlessFrontier'' and ''VideoGame/ProjectXZone''.
60	* Sanae of ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' is eventually revealed to be a massive HumongousMecha fan in ''Hisoutensoku''. When she saw the eponymous giant figure, she immediately went after it, practically {{Squee}}ing at the opportunity to battle, or maybe even ''ride'', the HumongousMecha.
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63	[[folder:Webcomics]]
64	* Kat from ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt''. She's very interested in robots, ''Series/TheXFiles'', video games (particularly ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid''), dance music (especially Orbital and Prodigy), and comic books (''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' and ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}''). [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=180 Occasionally]], her interest approaches {{Fangirl}} levels:
65	-->'''Tom Siddell:''' [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=96 Kat probably only has action figures she thinks are hot.]]
66	* Italy from her {{webcomic}}, ''Webcomic/TheLounge''. Not only does she like {{video game}}s, {{comic book}}s, and {{anime}}, she fancies women too.
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69	[[folder:Web Original]]
70	* The WebOriginal/SanrioBoys of the web series of the same name are all about this trope, being handsome men who [[RealMenWearPink unapologetically love Sanrio products]] and regularly talk about them.
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73	[[folder:Western Animation]]
74	* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': The episode "The Boy Who Would Be Queen" reveals Trixie Tang is secretly a {{Tomboy}} who is both one of these and a GamerChick. This is a CompressedVice and never brought up again.
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