A new video game subculture has been flourishing in Japan: men who are so obsessed with pubescent, female, Anime figures they form “relationships” with body pillows covered with the girl’s image.
In this world known as Moe, the rising popularity of so-called “2-D Lovers” has spawned its own thriving industry among some men.
If a guy can’t “get the girl” for real, virtual world fanatics figure, he gets a girl pillow. Within Japan’s widespread otaku culture – the obsessive fan base of anime, manga and video games – more is what the Moe men want.
The female characters and the Moe men who love them — some more innocently than others — are 10 to 12 years old.
However, the ornate costumes that create flashes of bright color on video screens often look nothing like the “get-ups” on the pillow covers. These child-women might be sporting strategically placed, but mockery-of-modesty patches. For bolder clients, the 2-D Lolitas are wearing nothing at all.
Nisan (pictured above) is a balding, flacid, 37-year-old, never-married video gamer. He describes his 3-year relationship with “Nemu” – whom he’s driven hundreds of miles on trips to visit Kyoto, Osaka and Nara — as blissful but chaste.
He even prides himself on taking special care not to touch her private areas when he tucks her into bed at night.
“I’ve experienced so many amazing things with her,” he gushes. “She has really changed my life.”
Toru Taima, also never married, makes no claims of innocence. He sells X-rated body-pillow covers at gaming conventions – and his eyes light up like a LED screen when he readily concedes he engages in sex with some of the 150 pillow cover characters he owns.
“I am not doing anything to harm anybody,” he insists. “To me these are works of art. They’re cute girls that live in my imagination.”
Whatever their intentions, 2-D lovers flock from all over Japan to Tokyo’s Akihabara district every day to scour specialty shops and attend fan events in search of new character girlfriends to add to their collections.
Cultural observers say the rise of 2-D love can be pinned in part on the difficulty many young Japanese of modest means have in navigating modern romance. More than a quarter of men and women between the ages of 30 and 34 are virgins; 50 percent of men and women in Japan do not have friends of the opposite sex, a government survey reports.
Perhaps there’s a screenplay in this for Judd Apatow, the American writer-director famous for his spot-on depictions of delayed adolescence in “The 40-year-old Virgin” and “Knocked Up.” But to hear Toru Honda tell it, moe subculture is more like “Revenge of the Nerds … Gone Creepy.”
Honda, 40, a college dropout who worked a succession of jobs at video-game companies, began imploring gamers online to “stand with pride against good-looking men and women.”
His message — that Japan’s economic bubble of the 1980s had killed the true value of romance, turning it into an elitist looks- and money-based commodity – caught on.
And so a subculture was born over the last half-decade or so. Japan’s lonely heart gaming fanatics can now get their “piece” of action, but without fear of complication or rejection.
(Link)
Anonymiss
Ronery! Oh so ronery!
Don't let 4chan find this o.o
Anonymous
We already knew. This is old hat.
Guitar Tuition Reviews
It look like another one of those “Japanese comedy/game show taken as reality by foreigners”.
pacat
GOOD GRIEF!!!!!! WHAT WILL THE AISIAN MARKET THINK UP NEXT? IS SEX THE ONLY THING THESE MEN CAN THINK ABOUT?I AM VERY FAR FROM A PRUDE,BUT FIND THIS DISCUSTING!!
kaze
most of what this man is thinking is all they want is from them to have a sexual exspreance, and he wants a romantic one, which is hard for him to find..it's os sad
Shaman
Ever fucked your hand? Same shit!
Ryan Lee Hannant
I'm going to condense my almost infinite confusion as to how grown men can be so insecure, so detached from reality, that they'd rather have a one-way relationship with a PILLOW CASE, than a human being into two words: Fucking idiots.
Tomoyo
You ever actually try to talk to a Japanese woman? At least pillows don't require Prada.
@zilentjd
My gf is japanese, she's the most modest woman I ever met. I'm not rich just an average low middle class latino. So you cannot generalize about all Japanese woman.
JAS
My wife is Japanese and I'm Caucasian she is the best!!!!! and no I'm not super rich either!!! she tells me that this is very common among japanese men and other asian men who can't draw attraction from women because they are so sexists and shy. These men just don't want to execpt the fact that japanese women and asian women in general are gaining power and will not be treated like property by the men in their society. She tells me that asian men in general just refuse to give any equality to asian women and she will not tolerate that crap…and I don't blame her one bit.
Even here in America asian american men aren't that respectful to asian american women, and thats just very sad that these men just can't except these women because they want respect…no wonder why ASIAN girls always go for CAUCASIN guys and they love us white men so much.
Blahblahblunts
haha. If you want to say Japanese, go ahead. Lets be real though. Are those "asian men" in america "asian american" or are they immigrants to america? do they have asian women?
Yes, let us all love the C A U C A S I A N males. They do the best for the planet don't they? Obviously if any group of people have been respectful to anyone, it has been the white man group. As history points out time and time again.
anon
@pacat
You would rather see these people go out and rape girls?
Emma
they probably will anyway, this isn't exacly building their social skills is it?
mcgrimus
They're just a bunch of 80-thread-count ho's, if you ask me.
anonymous
For some reason I find that this is happening because they are beyond feeling lonely.
Anon
@Pacat: I'd say Japanese, not Asian. P.S. that "anon" above wasn't me.
@anon: uncalled for
pacat
Point taken.Still too freakie and sad for me.As far as these men being able to rape a girl;Do you really think they could funtion with a real female of any age. They are too far into fantisy land to be able to function on much of any social level
pacat
Before someone jumps all over me for spelling which I truely suck at, I do know how fantasy is spelled.lol the same with function. peace
Oscillation
The fact that their reciprocals for "love" are pillows is already disturbing enough, why are the characters purportedly (well some of them) 10-12 years old? O_O That's just wrong.
@ Anon who said one would rather see them go out and rape girls: No one in their right mind would want something like that to occur however that doesn't justify grown men channeling their desires to an item of the bedroom which is meant to sleep on without devastating its purpose with lewd intentions and a pillow has no implications of life whatsoever.
Encouraging such behavior is also saying that detaching oneself from reality is permissible and such delusions are just wrong. Rather than finding companionship with a pillow they should be working on their people skills in order to improve what they may lack in friendship, companionship, etc.
AAA
japanese akiba boy happy Christmas
http://2chart.fc2web.com/2chart/tanosiikurisumsu….
A-san
10 to 12 years old? Another classical example of researching failure.
More like 8 to 20 years old.
TELNETmonk
This is really old news (I've known about body pillows for something like four years, now), and typically those who actually own such things do not use them as girl substitutes. In Japan it's usually considered on par with, say, a poster.
It's not really quite so weird when you consider Japan's Idol Worship media and culture.
FireCracker
wish people didnt confuse us OTHER asians with japanese…
whenever anime dolls are mentioned, my friends always look at me…
going,,, hey, arent you asian, you should know about that…
im like, youre probably thinking of japanese people…
im like, im not japanese, and im no where near how japanese think….
sayo
that's not to say that all japanese think that way either…
would you look over at a japanese friend if you saw an anime pillow?
you probably would.
Chez
Japanese, my god. Not surprised >___>
hugo
LOL, the Rei pillow!
sayo
Ah the pressures of japanese culture have finally begun to take their toll on the society.
*please don't take that seriously .__.
anon6
Great, now I know what my thirty year old brother wants for christmas besides videogames.
Helen
Those anime girls…at least the ones you show in pictures, are NOT 10-12 years old! Stop making these men seem like pedophiles who would go out and do awful things otherwise! Those characters are anywhere from 15-17. Even though that sounds bad still, these are anime characters. Not real people.
Emma
so these imaginery girls are like 10-12 years old, and nobody sees a problem with that??
Emma
ok, i didn't read the comment above >_<
but still, hasn't japan said all homosexual relationships are strictly illegal, yet this sort of creepy rubbish is perfectly fine?
Personalized Crystal Awards
Renji should set branches in Japan!
Bubba
is it wrong that I recognize quite a few of the characters in that room?
DontDoItYouWierdo
what the hell. ?
obssesions are getting out of control.
Beans
Look at the anime girl in the first pic with the green hair, and then look at the one with her breasts out in the second picture- they look they're horrified! If you're going to have a fake girlfriend on a pillowcase, wouldn't you want her to at least look like she likes you? lol.
Dan
I agree Beans… LOL
How about just buying Happy Face pillow cases?
Seriously… I’ve dated Japanese women. About 6.
It’s a mind field of mind games and they are ALL jealous all the time and no matter what you do.
One dumped me because her friend who wanted me said I was cheating on her, then once my girlfriend dumps me the other looses interest.
And Japanese women never tell you their true feelings.
It’s all a mascarade. You have to mind read them.
They say yes all the time and smile but they don’t follow through.
Even on dates that they suggested.
Japanese women are real enigma.
AND dating in Japan is really really expensive and Japanese women want gifts all the time and they want a guy with a high paying job.
(Then they have lovers because their career husband is always at the office)
So it’s not these guys fault !!!
A pillow is all they can afford and no mind games.
Bill
Ya the one with the green hair is scary.
They all are with the big eyes.
They look like aliens.
Anonymous
I don't blame these guys, dating and sex sucks. All girls want is sex, no cuddling, no foreplay, just sex and then a kid pops up and your life is over. Go out and get a real girlfriend? Look at those guys. What girl would want them and I don't mean that as a mock, I am dead serious. One look at me and you'd set yourself on fire like you've just seen Meg in Family Guy. Physical attraction ALWAYS comes before mental. Guys never fully grow up and women refuse to accept that. These guys are saving themselves a lifetime of misery if you ask me.
non of your business
man how old are you, i am guessing 13.
Anon
I'd say by his proper use of spelling and grammar, he is without doubt, older than you.
oreosftw
I find it really ignorant that people say they can't be 10-12 year olds. It's Japan. And no, I'm not stereotyping, I've lived there. If you go to Akihabara, otaku-central, in a million shops you walk in and see posters of modestly-dressed 10-y-o anime girls covered in cum. Don'd confuse Japan with other Asian countries
As much as I jizz over Japan, that traumatised me. But it's completely not extraordinary there…
samuel welsh
freaks get councling and a girlfriend.
Connee quinn
Simply divine, oh yes, I will definitely take all the Japanese girlfriend pillows in Kyoto. Moo san
Anonymousse
Incels be like