I, Otaku: Struggle in Akihabara

I, Otaku: Struggle in Akihabara (壮太君のアキハバラ奮闘記, Sōta-kun no Akihabara Funtōki, lit. "Chronicles of Sōta-kun's Struggle in Akihabara") is a manga series written by Japanese mangaka Jirō Suzuki. The manga is serialized in the shōnen manga magazine Monthly GFantasy. It has been licensed by Los Angeles-based company Seven Seas Entertainment for distribution in the English language.

A 4-episode OVA titled was released on December 2007 based on the manga's meta-anime series,. In addition, the author temporarily halted the manga to focus on a spin-off manga based on the OVA.

Plot
The story follows the seemingly normal but popular high school student Sota with a girlfriend. But secretly, he is a hardcore otaku who is obsessed with the fictional anime character named Papico since grade school, until an incident traumatized him to become a closet otaku. He is more or less able to keep his obsession a secret until he meets and then is forever harangued and followed by Mano Takuro, the crazed owner of an anime collectible shop in Akihabara. Mano attempts to change Sota's life for (as far as he's concerned) the better, by trying to bribe Sota into dumping his girlfriend Eri, a lowly "3-dimensional" and not a perfect 2D character like Sota's beloved Pico. Takuro often follows Sota, at one point dressing up in a giant Papico doll outfit, trying to get him to convert. Sota eventually finds a fellow Papico maniac and dubious ally in his school friend Kenji, who has a passing penchant for cosplaying in Papico's frock, to the point where he wears his Papico outfit under his regular clothes at all times.