For all the media attention the word "otaku" has gotten abroad in recent years (heck, there's even a magazine named Otaku USA now) the actual Japanese magazine article widely credited as debuting the term has never appeared in English -- until now.
Akio Nakamori's seminal 1983 Otaku no Kenkyu ("Otaku Research") column didn't coin the actual word, which is nothing more than a politer-than-polite way of saying "you" in Japanese. But he was the first to use it to describe the growing demographic of crazy kids that were more interested in anime, manga, and tokusatsu flicks than in fitting into "normal" society.
Nakamori's column didn't get much attention when it first came out because it originally appeared, Kilgore Trout style, in a softcore porn magazine rather than a mainstream publication. But within a few years, "otaku" took root in the Japanese public consciousness to become the de-facto term for referring to the social phenomenon.
And now I've translated it, so you can read it in English for the first time here at Neojaponisme.com. Enjoy!
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