I’m teaching you all another unusual Japanese word today.

I’m reading Ouran High Host Club, a hilarious manga with an unusual female protagonist and a brilliant harem of men who adore her – or at least hang around her enabling the reader to imagine there could be a possible romantic tryst. While reading I came across the word megane again. Back in my otaku days (otaku being the Japanese word for ‘nerd’ and usually used in reference to a particularly fervent fan of anime and manga) when I downloaded gigabytes of fan-subbed anime, read three or four manga tankobons (graphic novel collections of 6-10 chapters) a day (not exaggerating – every day!) and collected figurines and did cosplay, I knew the word. But as the fervour turned into a more well-paced and restrained enjoyment of manga the word slipped out of my vocabulary but has now been returned.

Megane translates to ‘glasses’ directly, but is often used by otaku to say they have a particular penchant for characters who wear glasses like Uryuu Ishida from Bleach, Kyoya from Ouran High Host Club and Miyuki from Lucky Star. Some mean it in a fetishist way, while others (like me) use it to mean usually their favourite characters are the ones wearing glasses. It’s usually a coincidence for me, they just happen to often have glasses, but some people choose their favourites because of the fetish.

I know today was a bit of a random post, but I hope you enjoyed learning a few new Japanese terms (and hearing briefly about my dark past as a wild otaku!