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I cannot express my displeasure with this anime enough. This went between an incredibly cringey and unrealistic story, to a low quality interview between the interviewers and otaku from the 1980s. I am amazed at the high reviews for this. I will separate this between the anime part and the interview part, in what is hopefully better executed than the movie itself.

ANIME:

Story: The story is quite nonsensical, and feels like a random conglomerate of events that loosely match up with the interviews. The ending makes very little sense, and almost feels like it is going against what the entire theme of the movie is supposed ... to be (basically, don't fall into the trap of becoming an otaku).

Art: It's from 1985, what is there to expect?

Sound: Once again, it's from 1985. It's fine.

Character: The main character, Kubo, somewhat feels like a puppet of the creators rather than a full-fledged character. He falls into the trap of becoming an otaku, but that is where the realism ends. He jumps from one idea to another, and none of the other characters have any depth. Very little is noted about Kubo himself, other than that he has/had a girlfriend, and has incredibly odd dreams after being pushed around like a cue ball.

Overall: Nothing stands out very much other than a terrible story.

INTERVIEWS:

Story: There isn't much of a story, but most of the interviews are somehow related to the anime portions. The interviewer asks multiple questions about the lives of the interviewees, ranging from past experiences to sexual habits. Some of the interviewees are just plain weird, others seem like normal people who are down in the dumps. At one point, the interviewers practically assault somebody who appears to be trying to just go about his normal day.

Sound: I think the sound was fairly normal quality for such an old show, but the first interview stands out to me as being particularly horrid. You can hear every time he breathes in, as though the microphone is sensitive in the wrong place, along with a fan running in the background. One of the people interviewed was from the U.S., and although this may be due to where I seen the movie, the subtitles did not match what he was saying at all.

Polls: After every interview, the narrator shows the watcher several charts depicting responses to various questions, from whether someone has hear of garage kits, to whether they had sex before marriage. These polls are practically taken as fact by the movie, and are used to create assumptions based upon an incredibly small portion of people (usually 100). The process of choosing people is also not explained, so it furthers how unreliable the results may be.

Overall: This is what killed it for me. The idea was certainly interesting, but between weird audio, and unreliable statistics, it didn't feel like it made sense to be included within the movie.

CONCLUSION: This is my first review, because I could not believe how high the ratings for this were. Otaku no Video is overall pretty terrible, from a low-quality story to faulty information. I would definitely skip this, and look for something better to occupy your time with. 2/10