How do the Otaku play with character elements to create identities?

One of the interesting things about anime is that when it's understood, it's not the character— I mean, the characters are obviously of interest and everything is characterful, but the otaku, or the most obsessive fans, are more appreciative of the 'karimo,' as they call it, the elements that make up a character. And their whole interest and participation is around mixing and remixing the karimo. So, you know, whether it's, I don't know, big pigtails or floppy striped socks or, you know, big eyes or pink hair or whatever it might be. They can mix and remix all of these around, and I think that speaks again to this idea of versioning and reversioning oneself as a character, which is the fascinating thing. And one of the things is, as real people and real kids enter these environments, obviously they end up behaving more like characters because that's what they are. They're the characters in the game of life that is on a virtual platform or whatever.