What the hell is wrong with Japanese men?
Nene Anegasaki, virtual bride.
Two stories today display just how messed up my countrymen are:
The Telegraph reports that a man playing a dating-simulation video game called Love Plus fell in love with the game’s anime character — and married her.
The aim of Love Plus is to court and build a relationship with one of three cartoon-style women, but virtual romance was not enough for this particular player, identified only by his username Sal9000.
Last weekend he became the first person to officially pledge his love to a video game character in a ceremony at a technology festival in Tokyo.
The couple’s special day was witnessed by dozens of computer game fans and overseen by a real-life priest, although he stressed that the “wedding” was not official or legally binding.
And NPR had this report by Louisa Lim: a new category of shy, asexual men.
These young men are becoming known as Japan’s “herbivores” — from the Japanese phrase for “grass-eating boys” — guys who are heterosexual but who say they aren’t really interested in matters of the flesh.
WTF?
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No offense, but I’ll just share an anon quote I found on the Internet once: “Japan has the world’s highest per capita WFT moments”
Well, how does this stack up against those Japanese fellows who a few years ago were buying used school-girl underwear from vending machines?
It’s wrong that I remembered that.
Scott: those vending machines still exist, but a lot of the sexual industry and fetishism has moved to cell phones and other forms of high tech these days. It’s wrong that I know that.
In response to another comment. See in context »While I think that this is utterly strange and do not even know what to say about it yet, I think that it is a very natural progression if you look at the levels to which people accross the globe are integrating their lives with their electronics. I myself spend an hour or two online every day reading the news, chatting with friends, and updating my Facebook page. In no way do I expect at any time in the near future to marry my computer, I could see very easily how a person who has problems in socialization issues would become enamored with the perfect virtual “girlfriend”. Especially since they probably had the ability to customize the girlfriend to a high degree.
Psychologists and psychiatrists around the world need to take note of this case, as I think this will only become more common as we comtinue to mesh reality with the virtual.
Aryanroe — I’d like to think these behaviors won’t cross the Pacific. I think it’s less about our relationship to technology than it is about gender relations, which in Japan are frozen in some bass-ackwards time.
In response to another comment. See in context »I find the second example more unbelievable than the first.