Most of us have normal or “normie” parents, and sometimes, we envy that friend of ours whose dad is really geeky. But it seems there’s a downside to having parents with the same hobby as us. This is very much true in Japan, as Twitter user, @xamethyx, talks about:

“The good things about having parents who are otaku:
● You don’t have to hide your otaku merch
● You know they’ll never throw your otaku stuff away when you’re not home
● If you feel like it, you can try to get them into the series you’re following.

The difficult thing about having parents who are otaku:
● When your mom (who’s in her 50s) starts singing ‘Bath time♪ Bath time♪ Bath tiiiime♪’ and imitating the voice of [A Certain Magical Index female lead] Index.”

Well, having your mom try and speak to you in a cutesy voice and trying to sound like Yuka Iguchi (Index’s seiyuu) might be pretty annoying indeed. But then, other people also posted other positive things about having otaku parents:

“Sometimes when my parents are out and they spot a figure of a character I like, they’ll call me on the phone and say something like ‘Your wife is on sale for just 500 yen…You want us to pick her up for you?”

“For my 20th birthday [the start of legal adulthood in Japan], my parents bought me a copy of the Nitro Plus porno game Hello World.”

“When my parents and I go to sing karaoke together, it’s pretty much an anime song music festival.”

“These days, it feels more like we’re otaku buddies than parents and child.”

But then again, there are always the drawbacks like the one @xamethyx mentioned:

“It’s nice having someone to split the cost of otaku merch with and all, but I’m not so crazy about when my dad and I are watching anime together and he keeps shouting out the dialogue along with the characters.”

“My mom (in her 50s) wants to keep the fact that she’s an otaku on the down-low, so she sends me to the store to buy stuff from [handsome man dating simulator maker] Otomate, which is kind of embarrassing.”

“It’s painful to hear my dad imitate [15-year-old Higurashi schoolgirl] Rena Ryugu.”

“I’m glad that my mom and I have anime as a common interest, but I wish she’d stop trying to turn me, her own son, into a boys’ love fan.”

Yikes! I wouldn’t want my mom of all people to try and make me interested in boys love either! I’ll also add some of the experiences a friend of mine has with her dad. He loves mecha anime, as well as Ultraman and she thinks his collection is cool. Heck, she even gets him interested in a few series herself! However, she does say her dad’s geekiness gets her embarrassed at times, though she understandably doesn’t state examples.

But remember, in the end, they’re still our parents. As former US President, Barack Obama once said, “It’s the father’s job to embarrass his daughters”. So when the negatives of having an otaku parent show up, just remember it’s part of the territory.

Source: Sora News 24