Welp:

The default Japanese image of an otaku is the opposite of outgoing, active, and youthful. Yet particularly in America, especially in the two-thousand-teens, anime has taken on the image that watching anime makes one cool. The entire point of the “Stay Crunchy” ad is to illustrate the idea that immersing in anime makes viewers popular, trendy, special.

I have to ask though, is Japan is ripe for the change as well. At work, I have to interact with the Japanese, and the number of anime watchers and gamers are higher than in U.S., if anything. They are not particularly asocial. One iM@S P among them has 3 kids.