"They come from all over the ethnic patchwork of this neighborhood of modest-to-fancy brick houses and square green lawns: East Asian, South Asian, Caribbean, African-American, Jewish. (Only one speaks Japanese at home.) But at the library, they identify as otaku — Japanese slang for manga aficionados — and their divisions run purely along manga lines. Fans of shonen action manga challenge partisans of romantic shojo; experts debate the merits of series.... Readers pool their knowledge to puzzle out magic spells, ninja moves and warrior codes that dominate the manga universe."
Not only is it creating a community, it's motivating others to pursue manga-inspired educational paths. "At least half a dozen Queens teenagers have seriously studied Japanese after getting
interested in manga — some making sure to choose colleges that teach it, others using library books like Japanese in Mangaland and Japanese the Manga Way. said Christian Zabriskie, 
who as youth librarian at the Queens Library’s central branch in Jamaica drew up to 40 students to its weekly manga club meetings. One young woman discovered a love of languages and now studies Russian in college, Mr. Zabriskie said...manga is for these teenagers what punk rock, New Wave, and Dungeons and Dragons were for his generation: a world of specialized knowledge that excludes adults and opens a private creative space for young people. “This kind of secret, hidden knowledge gives them a power and an empowerment,” he said. “It’s this generation’s esoterica.”
But, he said, unlike other teenage rituals like graffiti or, at the extremes, gang membership, manga fandom increasingly happens at one of the safest places around — the library.
“Rather than seeking out things that may be harmful, having your secret coding be foreign literature that you read in the library is pretty great.”
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