She’s never told anyone about her ten-year obsession with BL comics and wants to make sure she gets it right. She’s come prepared with notes, like any good otaku, and shuffles her pages of penned thoughts like a deck of cards. Hana seeks refuge from the buzzing lights of Otome Road in a nearby café and makes another swirl with her straw. They flock to Otome Road, or “Maiden’s Road”, a wide-set boulevard with a parade of animation-related boutiques selling everything from collectable figurines to thousands upon thousands of comic books. While Tokyo’s neighborhood of Akihabara is known worldwide as the center of otaku culture-a veritable capital of geek-dom, if you will-female enthusiasts tend to congregate beyond of the spotlight in Ikebukuro, on the other side of the city. They’re obsessed with what is called BL, or Boys’ Love-fictional stories that detail the romantic entanglements of two men.

Rotten girls, or fujoshi in Japanese, is a self-inflicted term used by women throughout the country who fall under a certain category of ardent manga (comic book) and anime (animation) fandom. She slowly moves her straw through the whipped cream in her designer latte and looks up.