Miho Asada and Yurika Harada (photo: Eric Prideaux)
Japan Times: Wota lota love
Miho Asada, Yurika Harada and Manami Ute were on stage touting the release of their new fashion DVDs, in which they strike poses to background music. Nothing unusual about that...But what about...those rows of somber grown men seated across the aisle, outnumbering the kids almost three-to-one?..."We're wota," said one slender-framed chap during a moment of quiet. What's a wota?...wota - which is pronounced "oh-tah" - are an offshoot branch of Japan's hobby-obsessed tribe of introverts known as otaku...the infatuation of the nation's estimated tens of thousands of wota is for girl idols - particularly the pop group Morning Musume...As the room started to clear, I pondered the idea of men with 5 o'clock shadows milling around a teen scene like this...Asked about this, however, an industry insider..told me that wota rarely cause trouble, even when they finagle their way into youngsters-only events by posing as chaperones.
I asked the models what they thought of their middle-aged male fans, and found that they were equally resigned. "It does feel a bit peculiar that these men are the same generation as my father," said 16-year-old model Harada. "But I'm grateful that they come and see us even in the countryside or up in Hokkaido."
