Toshio Okada, founder of Gainax, a prominent figure behind some of the most important shows and movies in the anime world. He even calls himself the Otaking. He’s lectured on universities worldwide about japanese pop culture and written many books for and about the otaku. The otaku community is very much indebted to this man, but that’s not enough for good ol’ Toshio, he had to do more. So he went ahead and wrote a weight-loss book for the otaku.

Sayonara, Mr. Fatty!: A Geek’s Diet Memoir is precisely that, a chronicle of Mr. Okada’s own struggle with his weight and the very geeky way he found to beat it. The book just recently went on sale in english, so if you are struggling with your weight and the tips from all those jocks on late-night infomercials aren’t cutting it’; why not turn to the Otaking himself for some advice?

He found a way to make every otaku feel like an intellectual with Evangelion’s crammed symbolism, I’m pretty sure he can at least make you feel skinny.

[Sayonara, Mr. Fatty! At Amazon / Via Tokyomango][

While those of us unlucky enough to ever have played with the Virtual Boy, we know that Videogames can’t just give you a killer headache, but can also screw with your eyesight (and your tolerance to the color red), however to the rest of you it turns out games can improve your vision.

A study by the University of Rochester on the effects of gaming on eyesight revealed that playing First Person Shooter games gives your eyesight a killer workout. Constantly keeping up with an ever-changing environment and trying to hit that guy carrying the flag with your rocket launcher from across the map trains your eye for better and faster spatial recognition. The results of this are better night vision, improved reading speed and even faster healing after eye surgery. However, study subjects who played more passive games like The Sims, didn’t get any of these benefits.

Games can’t get you shooting lasers out of your eyes just yet, but if you’d played that Virtual Boy a couple of years more… it might just have happen.

[Nat Geo News]

Again, reporting from the “no shit, Sherlock” department at DDN HQ, a kid in Sweden passed out in an epileptic seizure after playing WoW for 24 hours straight. Now a report form Sweden’s Youth Care Foundations is describing WoW as the ‘crack cocaine’ of videogames. Psychiatrist Richard Graham said in response to the case:

‘Such prolonged gaming can produce a sort of socially withdrawn figure who may be connecting with people in the game, but is largely dropping out of education and other social opportunities.’

Wow! These people are making freaking breakthroughs here, next up: Hardcore anime fans have unreal expectations of the female body… and the effects of gravity on it.

[DM]

From the “no shit, Sherlock” department at DDN HQ we bring you news of a scientific study made at Northwestern University which has found that the amount of time spent playing MMO’s is proportional to an increase in feelings of depression. Researchers found that people who played MMO’s ‘often’ were 9% more likely to be depressed. Big freaking surprise there huh?

We all know at least one of them, the ones that have been sucking on the teat of the MMO goddess for far too long. Grinding away day after day, working shitty jobs just to maintain the habit. When your games start to be more escapism than distraction, and you start to look like our South Park friend up there, its no wonder you’d get depressed.

Can MMOs be a cause of depression or is it simply a comfortable outlet for those already depressed? What’s your take? Hit us up in the comments!

[LA Times]

Dan, a reader of DSFanboy, was a smoker. Dan also used to be a Pokemon addict back in the day, so Dan decided that to quit smoking he’d play Pokemon every time he wanted a smoke. So far he’s been going 40 days strong. Its all well and good, props to Dan, but somehow changing one addiction for another doesn’t seem right to me. The Grind might not pollute your lungs but it does something wrong, it chips away at your soul, one level at a time.

[DSFanboy]

Reading a manga or playing with your PSP or DS can be a real pain, literally. I cant count how many times I’ve had back-aches after several hours slouched over the recipient of my geeky attention. And, hey, lets be honest, we’re not known for having the best posture in our hobbies.

In comes the Game Dutch, a specially designed pillow for keeping some support on your body during those marathonic sessions. A piece of furniture so useful you’d think it would come from Sweden but surprisingly its Japanese, as most likely is the object of you slouching.

[Game Dutch / Via TokyoMango]

We gamers, otaku and geeks in general depend a great deal on the holy trinity of foodstuffs, snacks, fast food and caffeine, to perform amazing feats of endurance; specially caffeine, it is the cornerstone of our sustenance. Who among us can deny that a bottle of Bawls, or six, helped us survive the decadence of a gaming marathon, an anime convention or camping out for the latest overhyped product they throw our way? And in with Halloween just a day away, caffeine just might save us again.

But beware, enough caffeine in your body and you’ll go the way of Clover studios. And while we all love pushing the boundaries its better to know what those boundaries are. Enter the Death by Caffeine calculator, this nifty script allows you to know exactly how much of your poison of choice your flabby body can take before you collapse and are survived by your collection of anime figurines.

I could be offed by drinking 132 bottles of bawls but I’m pretty sure I’d be well beyond conscious before hitting 50. Sadly the website has no information on my power juice of choice, Vamp, which claims to have “the maximum amount of caffeine allowed by law”, so I’m just gonna have to find that out for myself, in the name of science, of course.

How much caffeine have you done? Got a funny story about your caffeine induced schizophrenia? Tell us in the comments!

[Energy Fiend]