This sounds really interesting, considering one of my favorite pastimes is lurking battlestation threads, just to see how other people live.
Do you have any particular links to share?

>>26044

Probably would have been a good idea to give some examples in my OP post...

http://fixyt.com/watch?v=cpytPgVeUd4
http://fixyt.com/watch?v=7KHcltclkIA
http://fixyt.com/watch?v=1F7XjhhfzCk
http://fixyt.com/watch?v=YzW9-TK3dB4 (this one is a girl. She's speaking Japanese and only talking about things in her room, but warning anyway for people who want to avoid 3D that much)
http://fixyt.com/watch?v=RHIWgcU-zmM
http://fixyt.com/watch?v=Qx4NBNoCdp8

When I was a NEET I always figured I'd buy stuff when I was eventually forced to get a job, but when I got a job I didn't bother buying anything.

I do have a few anime-related things around, and the very few people who have ever been over have been very awkward in pretending not to notice when they obviously do. It's like it becomes the elephant in the room for whatever reason.

My cousin came over and just sort of looked around awkwardly, but it took her like 2 hours before she randomly blurted out in the middle of a conversation if I watched Attack on Titan. I told her that I had seen it, but was not into it obsessively. She told me her little brother watched it religiously. Weird, I didn't know it had achieved that level of popularity.

The other day I thought about buying some manga, because it's the only thing I can think of that I might actually buy, as I prefer reading reading real books over digital copies, but I decided it wasn't logical to waste so much more money for a slightly better reading situation. Free is hard to beat.

Well, there's usually a difference between those that have a real passion over people that just want to take a style and imitate it because they think that it's "cool".

>>26049

I have a wall of manga, and posters lining every other wall. You couldn't miss it if you tried. My dad has been in here and he didn't say anything about it; he was probably thinking things, though.

>>26050
I don't think that's quite it.
Obtaining this kind of merchandise is hell of a lot more difficult in the west. It also increases the price of an already expensive hobby by adding import taxes.

At least in here, there aren't any shops in my city I could just walk in and buy merchandise of a show I like, there's a lot of planning and waiting before a buy, and it's quite a hassle. Plus, official merchandise doesn't have the same value for me as localized shit, I might as well print posters and read manga from my tablet for that.

Of course, the most passionate fans will have a lot of goods still, but imagine how that would escalate if they lived in the land where the actual stuff is produced.

>>26043
We used to have some interesting stuff in the old otaku room thread in here, but I guess many of those users are gone by now. Tohno is one of the few around that I know of who still enjoys collecting and making his room something personal and special. I still collect but much less because situations, including running out of space and having more expenses. I don't think I'd ever make a video of it, but here's the last general pic I took last year. My room really is my sanctuary and ship into my inner world. Pretty much no one enters it ever and only two persons outside from the family have been here in two different occasions during the last 15 years. It's the only place I'm really comfortable at and, come what may, I rather not leave it ever. My room is an extension of myself and I am truly myself only here.

>>26053
That thread hasn't died yet.
http://tohno-chan.com/ot/res/14242.html

Thanks for taking your time to write this OP.

>I've never bought anime BDs or DVDs so I have no idea how expensive they are.

Very. It's about 40$/ep on average. So for a 12 ep series you'd have to shell out 480$.

>>26064
Is that $40/ep including import costs, though? I can't imagine anyone buying every series they like at that cost and still affording figures and such. And I don't think Japanese people pirate all their anime either, since piracy law is actually enforced over there.

>>26065
You can just watch anime on the tv and program to record it for personal use though, that's not illegal.

>>26066

So Japanese otaku do it just by staying up for those 1AM shows and recording it, presumably onto a DVD or something... cool. I like the idea of catching some 1AM airing show and then rushing onto 2ch immediately after to discuss it with everyone. I guess Westerners can't really do that because we watch it whenever, as long as the fansubber has finished it, so we all see it at different times.

>>26067
Plenty of people in the west watch raw live streams directly whenever they can.
The quality is usually low, but you can discuss the episode as it is airing.

>>26068

I'm talking about people who don't know Japanese of course. Might be kind of tough to discuss something if you can only catch the occasional word of the dialogue.

>>26053
It puts the lotion on its skin.

>>26070
how come?

>>26043
The reason is probably that it is at least slightly less taboo to have eroge in Japan than it is here. If I could have a room look like that I would.

I gotta say, I really do see my room as being something of a sanctuary. I just can't be comfortable anywhere else quite like when here in my room. Here I can truly be at peace and be myself. When in here, it's like the outside world disappears.
Used to be when I worked I'd bring up photos of my room on my cellphone to give myself a tiny sense of comfort and sometimes try to pretend I was there when I got really home sick. My room before this one was what OP seems to be aiming for. I had floor to ceiling anime posters, pretty much any anime posters I could get my hands on I'd toss up proudly and same for figs even though my collection was much smaller back then. This was also around the time I went full blown hikki as well.

Guess you could say I've fallen more into that more "subdued, subtle and "mature" look" OP described with my current room. I agree that western 'otaku' rooms can be rather boring because of this. They seem to usually be very empty save for a small handful of strategically placed eastern characters, like a single touhou doll in the corner of the room and maybe a single display case with some high end figs. They come off as being very empty, cold, and soulless. Almost like those fake rooms in model homes. They feel more like something created for display in a magazine rather than something actually lived in.
I dunno but when I moved into this current room I felt like making things more clean and organized, that and I wanted to focus on just having posters of my waifu. Unfortunately there really aren't many official or high quality images of her which is why I only have a few. Not to mention all the random sized posters taped all over the walls started to feel a bit tacky to me, although in looking back the room certainly did seem more fun. Didn't help things much that things were really cramped. Like OP mentioned, I've not really had any space to expand outside of my room since my mom can't keep her hands off things I leave outside of it. This lead me to having to pack as much stuff as I could in here, and leaves me in a never ending desperate struggle to keep things organised. I've packed and hidden stuff everywhere I can and it's still a bit of a mess. My bed and the majority of my closet is just purely for storage. honestly it's actually a bit tricky just to get in here, since my arcade machine kinda blocks the doorway and you gotta step over my couch to get in.
It's funny though, when we came to check out this house before moving in, I spent hours in this room while it was empty. not just measuring everything and planing where my stuff would go but generally trying to get a feel for the room. It might not be the most fancy thing but I'm genuinely happy with my room. I spend 95% of my day in here and have spent a lot of time getting things the way I like it. It'll really suck having to leave it, and that's one of the reasons I started work on that model room, so I could take this room with me wherever it is we end up going.

p.s. Figured I'd take a pic of my room the way it is at the time of writing this without moving stuff around or anything.

Post edited on 4th Feb 2015, 11:11pm

>>26162

I recently took down a bunch of Chinese bootleg cheapo posters I had up from before I knew the difference. I had them for about three years, and they covered every inch of wall. I'm replacing them with a few official ones with some space in between, so I guess I'm going the same way as you.

Funny the traditional japanese room is very sparse and minimalist. personally i don't care for things anymore. useless objects. that said i'd rather have a classical art print than some gaudy moe character on my wall. my walls currently have nothing.

I think erotic images on a wall is an immature thing, which i imagine most japanese otaku are stuck in a perpetual youth. i don't even keep such things on my computer.

these western "otaku" are just geeks. the true western equivalent probably can't afford/obtain, or desires, or cares to share.

and to top it off i imagine there's some desire to conform to the trope/stereotype.

just my useless 2ct

>>26053
This may be a morbid question, but what happened to those users? Why did they stop collecting?

>>26168
Probably got board of tc and moved on.

>>26168
>This may be a morbid question
What are you implying buddy?!