Literature / Otaku Girl

"Imagine a world where you can live the life of your favorite fictional characters."'

Otaku Girl is the 2021 sequel to the pop culture fiction Escapist Dream by Louis Bulaong. It was first released as a webnovel in February before being published as a book four months later. The sequel takes place in the same virtual reality world - the Escapist Dream - where people can role-play and use the powers of their favorite fictional characters. It focuses on a new character, a Japanese otaku named only as "GI", who got trapped inside the Escapist Dream together with other geeks after it once again malfunctioned. The protagonist of the first novel, Charlie Anderson, returns to save these geeks.

As a pop culture novel, Otaku Girl is filled with pop culture references from a variety of media and fandoms. But unlike the first novel which focuses on Western comics and films, Otaku Girl focuses instead on Japanese manga and anime, with more emphasis on internet culture and memes. The sequel is noted for its surrealism, informal and wacky writing, and its criticisms on cyberbullying and cancel culture.

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Escapist Dream contains examples of

• Abandoned Area: The Escapist Dream in particular. The virtual reality world was already abandoned way before the start of the novel, only resurrected by hackers who got their hands on it. When it once again malfunctioned, the geeks trapped inside had to abandon all of the areas in order to retreat from crazed A.I.s who had begun attacking them.
• Attempted Rape: GI almost got raped twice by the bosses (one of them calls himself the "Harem King" so you know how devious he is). Thankfully, she escaped this fate through various circumstances.
• Big Bad: It was revealed to Charlie early on that the one who caused the malfunction of the Escapist Dream is an all-powerful Eldritch Abomination called the "Nihilion". The origin of the Nihilion is shrouded in mystery. During its first meeting with Charlie, it introduced itself as a psychopathic alien who came to destroy Earth, but decided to invade the Escapist Dream first and torture the geeks inside for fun. But during the final chapters, it was revealed that the Nihilion is nothing more than a virus. Besides hating humans, another reason why it took over the Escapist Dream was to lure Charlie to get revenge for the death of its creator, Jim Broughton, in the first novel.
• Break the Cutie: Of all the geeks in the Escapist Dream, Charlie is by far the most optimistic, cheerful, and hopeful of getting out. Although there were times where he showed anguish and self-blame, he would consistently get over them and face every adversity with determination. However, the big revelation near the end crushed Charlie so hard that he ended up being in the Despair Event Horizon. His depression was so bad that GI, the most depressed character in the book, actually tried desperately to cheer him up, not wanting the most hopeful of them to drown in despair like the rest of them (to no avail).
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: The literary geek, Calamum Nomen (which is Latin for “pen name”), is an example of this. He might look like a laidback bookworm who likes to jot around in his notebook, but he actually has the powers to warp reality by speaking out excerpts from literature.
  • Another example are the bosses or A.I.s the Nihilion created to torment the geeks, and the ones whom the latter have to defeat in order to confront the Nihilion. They may look meek and stupid, but they all have a deadly mix of meta-superpowers and sociopathic personalities.
    • The Professor is a boss who takes the form of a high school English teacher. He also happens to have the powers of famous literary characters.
    • Harem King is a boss who takes the appearance of an anime harem protagonist. He also happens to have an army of waifus and can take the form of a tentacle monster like those in Japanese porn.
    • Dude Assassin is a boss who appears as a Twitch streamer and gamer. He also has the powers to use cheat codes, making him hard to beat.
    • The Rebooter is a boss taking the form of a kid who likes comic books. He can also “reboot” a person (in a complete mockery of how American comics like to reboot themselves such as changing race, powers, or history). He can also take the form of the gigantic Anti-Monitor from DC Comics.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Played straight with GI's character. The book basically deals with what would happen if an actual girl gets to live the life of a female anime character. In a medium filled with ecchi and rape comedy, living an anime life is not as fun as it seems, even being straight-up dangerous.
• Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Used in most of the boss fights. Due to their godlike powers, GI and Charlie have to defeat the bosses using their wits instead of just relying on their powers. This is due to the fact that after the Escapist Dream went berserk, most of its rules have been modified or removed, and the bosses the geeks had to deal with are near uber-invincible. Examples of this include:
  • Charlie defeating Harem King by making his waifu jealous, resulting in her killing him.
  • GI defeating Dude Assassin by getting him SWATted (yeah it's that crazy).
• Dysfunction Junction: Almost all the main characters are broken and flawed. There are no protagonists who are cunning geniuses or talented fighters in this story. This novel is about a bunch of untrained geeks forced to survive in a hostile world, as such they stumble and make a lot of fatal errors throughout the book. The main character, GI, got her name (which is an acronym for "Great Idiot") because of a mistake she made that led to their only chance of getting out ending in failure.
• Face–Heel Turn: This isn't a Louis Bulaong story without a twist. It turns out that Amp, the FBI agent and the one who's supposed to help the geeks escape, is actually working for the Nihilion. He sold the other geeks out because he came to the realization that there was no way for them to defeat the Nihilion, and the only way to survive was to join forces with it.
• Not the First Victim: It turns out that the geeks are not the Nihilion's first victim. It stated in Chapter 7 that before coming to Earth, it first destroyed its own people and planet. Sadly, this turns out to be false.
• Plot Twist: There are two twists in the story:
  • One is that Amp had actually joined forces with the Nihilion unbeknownst to the other geeks.
  • Second is that Charlie was the one who actually caused the Escapist Dream to get hacked in the first place. The Nihilion took over the virtual reality world in order to lure Charlie back.
• Reference Overdosed: What made Otaku Girl unique to the first book is how internet memes are incorporated into the story... as actual characters. Seriously, Ultra-Instinct Shaggy and Big Chungus actually appear in the book to massacre geeks.
• Took a Level in Badass: After getting a power-up in the final chapter, GI turned from an insecure and socially-anxious geek into a godlike expy of Madoka Kaname from Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
• Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: The highlight of the battle scenes in this novel. Since the Escapist Dream is a virtual reality world where geeks can use the powers of their favorite fictional characters, expect to find scenes where Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are fighting against Doraemon or One-Punch Man getting killed by the Saint of Killers from Preacher.
• Virtual-Reality Warper: Charlie and GI after getting power-ups in the final chapters. Charlie, in particular, got the powers of Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen, complete with the total control over time and space (as well as the ability to one-shot his enemies).