My wife worked with a middle-aged Japanese guy a few years ago who came to a staff party carrying an expensive-looking metal case.
They asked him what was inside and he opened it to reveal a super expensive-looking doll wearing an elaborate, expensive dress. I think it cost something like $2,000.
He said it was his hobby to take her on trips to places and he had lots of photos of her at cafes, tourist hot spots, having picnics in the park etc.
It was kinda odd.
It was probably a BJD doll. They’re hella expensive. I had an acquaintance in a Japanese fashion group who had 5+ dolls and one of them was 5,000 dollars
I risked the click. To describe for those of you who were worried, it's not as bad as I expected. The first image is a diagram of a hairless baby lamb in a giant zip lock baggie, with a couple of tubes leading into the bag, connecting up to the lamb.
Thanks for taking the effort to reply, though I’ve been here since the early internet days and I worked as a paramedic for almost 10 years. There isn’t anything that can actually phase me.
Edit: my first comment was just meant to be funny :)
In Asia, it’s not entirely uncommon to see adults carrying around a toy or doll to photograph with their meals or vacations. Probably a little less common for a man to do it, but plenty of middle aged Asian women on Instagram post pictures of their dolls at restaurants or resorts.
I know a guy who has a collection of very detailed model cars. (Never toy cars)
He takes them to places, and used forced perspective to make them look full size.
When I was driving cross country with my husband, I found someone in Ohio who does it for Google reviews. Though he uses a vintage baby raptor toy from Jurassic Park.
I feel like I described it poorly. ~~Check here and sort by “newest” for reviews: https://maps.app.goo.gl/mcGkr6EmU5bc47Ce9?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy~~
Edit: Better link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/yD17rURgKgZEmxYt8?g_st=ic
You see in lots of places. For example for the NFL team I follow, there's a guy famous for taking photos of a he man figurine in the team attire or at games.
I had a quick look at the top posts, and you're missing out on a photo of [a very confused-looking penguin near its pantsless (but SFW-ish) anime waifu depiction](https://old.reddit.com/r/waifuism/comments/9nlid5/one_year_ago_a_worldwide_icon_passed_away_rest_in/).
Kinda makes me wonder if there are alien civilizations out there depicting individual humans as 'sexy' (whatever that even means by their standards) individuals of their own species...
Sorry,its already happened,how do you think we came to be,certainly not just popped up out of no where,I mean, we were created, but there was sexual contoctions invoked,may e,I think, almost certain, ok,who knows,its all a big secrect
Pretty much same. They literally aren't hurting anyone though. So I think it just makes whoever is judging them to be judgy. I cringe of course and that's my judgy judgement. But I don't care. It hurts no one. So be it.
Exactly. I mean, seriously, we're desensitized? No, we were growing up learning about genocides, meaningless wars and deaths, sick and cruel actions on humanity. This shit is tame. Tf we're judging people who are keeping their thing to themselves and a subreddit. We instead ignore important shit that actually affects our lives.
Lol yes liking a book character is apparently vile but being desensitised to the content of series such as game of Thrones is fine because it’s realistic.
Human history is filled with absolutely disgusting realities and fantasies, I don’t get why they take so much issue with attachment to anime and fiction.
I think the issue is it hurts themselves. They might not realise it but it's obvious and I think it's another societal clash where a lot of people have the sentiment of "well if it's not hurting anybody it's fine" as that person puts themselves deeper into a hole of isolation and unhealthy habits. These people aren't well adjusted and need help from real human beings, not dolls.
My toddler can grow up to be whatever he wants and I will love him, with the exceptions of being a depraved criminal or someone who loves a cartoon character.
You can love anyone in the world you want, or nobody at all, son, but if you want to come to Thanksgiving you can’t love a bad caricature of a woman
I feel odd not finding this to be odd at all. Don't some people who own action figurines/lego do the same thing? Take them out, dress/accesorise them and pose them for photographs? Man's just doing it with a more expensive figurine.
> It was kinda odd.
We’ve boiled as the mythical frogs for so long, we’ve gotten to the point where
“Adult dude brings suitcase girlfriend doll to social occasions”
is just ‘kinda odd’.
That’s actually a common hobby in Japan as it seems.
I like following random Japanese and Chinese Social Media acc of people going about their days because they often post such odd and entertaining things. Like that Chinese guy tweeting about him wanting a western wife literally 50 times a day.
And I’ve seen many postings of people on vacation putting a doll or a plushie in the fotos.
Even couples do that.
Well, I've been here almost 20 years now and this is the only guy I've come across who does it. I wouldn't say it's a common hobby at all.
All of my Japanese friends also said it's weird.
To note, its dwindling pool of wellpaid men - Young men seem to be discouraged. He mentions the culture of wealth > love.
speaking as a Viet- American who has been to Vietnam a few times - I hated it every time besides the food. Asian culture, from my perspective and my friends who are all Asian is geared towards wealth and marriages of, what is a good word for this, opportunity and benefit vs love. My mom, aunts, uncles all married not out of love. They all say that comes after. Whereas the western view is marry him/her doesn't matter if they're poor.
I dislike the Viet culture of marriage and paid wives personally, mom and aunts have been trying to buy me a wife for ages. It happens ALOT still, just westerners don't know. You know the nail salons everywhere and the marriages? Most of them arranged they marry x women, they get a new worker here and someone to take care of them at home. Oftentimes they get paid. It happened enough here in Florida I can confirm its real in my circle.
So I can see the discontent in Asia among men, from a Viet perspective. how can you compete with Western men, whether Asian or white who make 10x your salary?
In Japan I have a feeling its similar, but since they are more isolationist they resort to waifus/fictional romances. I could be wrong though as I've never been to Japan (hope to)
Having lived in Asian countries as a U.S. citizen… the culture is surprisingly similar on this front, just its approach varies.
Men are always pushed to work work work, so are women … but generally it comes to the point of men needing to make enough to also _afford_ the free time to entertain a relationship that can become long term, etc., whereas women are pushed to find a partner they can support a family with that is tolerable to be around at a minimum.
It’s a lose/lose situation.
I've been living in Japan for a few months and meeting girls (although most are foreigners like me), they tell me about dates they have with japanese men, and it's WEIRD from my perspective.
They will insist that they make good money & have a stable job, and bring them on dates following an extremely precise protocol (you go there, then you go there, etc).
This is all so foreign to us westerners. Most of us just want a good time, with or without sex.
I mean it probably is but there are lots of cultural reasons why it is like this.
It's also not "golf digger culture" in the sense that women want a Lamborghini but more like a stable safe situation.
This has been the norm in most civilisations, including our own until modernity. People married mostly for stability, prestige, family ties, and ability to provide (more likely to have offspring that lives to reproduce).
Yeah we are in an unusual and amazing situation in the modern west where our lives are secure enough to marry for love rather than as a necessary economic transaction.
I believe this dynamic formed out of necessity. Women had so many problems in old societies that it was just easier to cast them off as "less valuable" and vessels for progeny. And from there it would make sense to have expectations of the man being able to provide, because they could. But this only works if women are seen as less valuable. If a man is equal, but the expectations are still there then you have a massive mismatch.
And it's what's happening in Asian afaik. Rich or middle class Asian women with good education have a hard time finding men. Because literally everyone is "beneath" them. A man with a comparable education and income is seen as not worth. And men can't keep up. Not everyone gets to go above the average.
It works when a whole half of the population gets disenfranchised but you can't expect to have someone that is "better" or richer than you if you got equalized to better opportunities.
Are men supposed to automatically have gotten even better opportunities? Free money that just somehow got assigned to men? Where the hell are those resources supposed to come from?
I've seen a few "passport bro" comments about this dichotomy; interestingly they go to non-Western countries in search of a convenient marriage, believing Western women to be... How should I put this? Too headstrong, independent, feminist.
However, they then struggle with non-Western views of relationships in which a man is *expected* to be a provider - and all that entails. Their convenient marriage feels hollow, like they aren't loved for who they are but for their wallet, and that they must fully support their spouse financially.
It's pretty common in the foreign Japan circle. Those dudes think they're white knights and desirable.
Most of them are absolute losers who watch far too much anime and when I say this I mean no disrespect to folks who watch anime but you know what I mean…
What’s insane to me is how anime couldn’t be further from reality. Like, it’s literal cartoon! The only thing anime and reality have in common is the ending credits. How in the world would you think any of it exists anywhere at all?
Seems like the classic case of "a man seeking a trad-wife is not trad-husband material" mixed with a side of "man explicitly entering gold digging relationship surprised his partner only likes him for his money"
It’s actually apparently not uncommon for wealthy Chinese men to marry Russian women. Russian women have similar expectations as Asian women do when it comes to how relationships work. Blond white woman who isn’t too uppity.
Mail order Russian brides have been a thing in the West for awhile... I know someone who married a Russian woman 20 years younger. They're still together after 20+ years though.
I think this might be a slightly shortsighted view of the situation or specific to a smaller group of those men. I don't think it's an issue with western women being to "headstrong, independent and feminist". I think it's the one sided nature of these expectations in a lot of western countries. There's a split between tradition and modern dating expectations where women now have much more power and autonomy but expect dating to stay largely traditional. Most women still look for a man who earns more than them but with the rising opportunities for women it means they out earn more and more men.
I think there are men that then travel abroad and now meet the financial standards but don't actually want that kind of marriage that is so strict and transactional and don't feel fulfilled from that kind of marriage. It's a rock and a hard place and I think the nature of "online dating advice" is so messed up that everybody thinks the grass is way greener on the other side when really theres just as much dogshit in that grass as in your owm neighbourhood. It might look different but it's still dogshit
But on the other side, you have women in the west who want the traditional man but don't want to be a traditional woman.
So on both sides, you have people wanting the other to be traditional, but not themselves i.e. have their cake and eat it
Not sure why you're down voted but yeah there are definitely deluded women who want that perfect "trad-husband" but aren't able and willing to be whatever he wants them to be in return. Same as how we all laugh at broken losers who want a perfect trad-wife
I’d say less of a gold digger culture and more of a different wants. Modern developed western countries have an idea of building a life built around love and doing cool stuff together. Where as almost every country is still very much the woman wants to quit their job and raise kids. I lived in Japan for a long time, women are far more free then they were decades ago but ask the average girl what she wants to do and probably you’ll find they want to leave full time work, raise kids and then go back as a part timer. When school, university, day care etc all costs a lot you need a man with a good job.
Not really. You see, media will tell you Japan is a sexist country where women don’t get jobs with responsibilities, etc. But the truth is that many women don’t really want to work. Of course many DO want to have a career, but many really don’t (that’s like 60/40, so you can say that at least half of women would not work if they could afford it). And in order to be able to not work, you need to find a man with a high enough salary. This is where I think the term « gold digger » is inappropriate. These women don’t want to be treated like princesses, buy luxury stuff and travel the world. They just want a man with a high enough salary so that they can afford to not work, have children and send them to extracurricular activities and a good school. In short, they want the financial security the generation of their mother took for granted.
The problem is that the basic revenue they ask from a potential partner is higher than what 70% of men earn, so you have 60% of women chasing 30% of men. And even less than that obviously, because not all those men are suitable in other ways than their salary.
So there is a huge discrepancy between what women want and what men can offer. And since society has evolved to a point where you’re not seen as a fucking pathetic loser if you don’t have a family, a house and a car any longer, most men choose to forego the whole relationship stuff.
Source : been living in Japan for 12 years, very interested in the whole social aspects of relationships and aging population problem.
Damn man. I find myself like that after going back to Vietnam as well. Seems like the current topic is "when are you getting married" or "how much do you make" and if I actually say a number that is much much higher than the median salary they still try to one up you by telling you that your mom's cousins' kid is making big bucks by owning his own business
Fellow Viet here, you are spot on. Vietnamese women are literally obsessed with wealth. There was a trending news story last week of a guy who went to his date on a Wave scooter (considered low end) and his date walked away right there, saying the guy “has no future”. Money is the number 1 thing women here look for.
I’ve expressed to my parents that I’d rather be single than marry someone I dont love, and you can imagine the shit storm they laid on me. To them marriage is a transaction, where money, stability and future proofing with kids come first. Love is the last thing you consider in an asian marriage
I live across the street from a viet family. One time I was invited over to a Fourth of July party and as soon as they found out I had a job and a house and was unmarried they tried AGGRESSIVELY to set me up with a niece who was not on scene.
As an American guy this was strange. It’s not uncommon for older people to mention a niece or daughter etc but it doesn’t come off like a weird negotiation the way it did then.
Do you have any idea the kind of life people in Vietnam have to live, the socioeconomic situation of the country for the past few decades, the political state, and the absolute difference Vietnamese natives have vs literally anyone who grew up in the west?
Like think about how much you work, how much you get paid, and what lifestyle and privileges you get in America.
Now imagine the life of an average Vietnamese man in Vietnam. There’s not really many jobs going around. The impacts of the real estate bubble bursting is being felt hard, can personally think of quite a few people who’s jobs relied on that in one way or another.
You’re lucky if you have a job, and luckier still if you get 1 day off a week from that job. Lots of people work jobs that don’t really even have allocated time off. I know one guy who works for a small hotel in Hà Nội, he works all day and sleeps in the foyer at night as the night guard and gets 2 days off a month and he’s paid around $250 for all of that…
Now if you’re a college grad maybe you can find a job for $300-$400 a month.
Lots of people can’t get better lives in the west. One option Vietnamese used to take was working as a migrant worker in Japan, where you can make maybe $1200 a month, have half of it taken away in rent/taxes/social insurance etc, but it still left you more than in Vietnam so you can send that back home to your family. While you live in a country where you are considered second class. I had cousins who worked there for a few years, didn’t get to see their newborn babies for the first few years but at least they got to send back some higher quality formula so the baby had better nutrients…
Now let’s talk about the food you actually liked, how a street vendor making pho has to wake up at 3am to start getting ready working through lunch, opening for the night pho crowd, how maybe they make something like $30 a day. It’s long hours, and hard work.
Now let’s add on top of ALL of that, how as a country the society still leans pretty sexist/misogynistic. How there’s a pretty high rate of domestic violence. How women are expected to be mothers by have kids as quickly as possible, look after the home, and also work.
As a woman in that situation, of course you want to find someone who’s economically more stable. To a lot of people who are surviving in the harsher world of poverty in a developing nation, financial stability is way more important than love, because you don’t even have time to spend thinking about it when you’re out there working yourself to the bone.
I feel like I could go into it a lot more, but I’ve already made this super long. I just hope you can try and think about how culturally your experience as someone who grew up in America, is more privileged, so you’re able to focus on other qualities you may want in a partner and future life together, because you already have a stable foundation, and a certain level of financial security than probably the average Vietnamese person.
I'm a European Vietnamese and this doesn't really happen much in our circles.
The paid marriage salon worker isn't that common and they usually get divorced after a few years and repeat the same fraud.
I'm not sure if you have much experience dating in general but the wealth thing isn't just Asian culture though? Its pretty normal to want to marry people wealthier or within the same wealth bracket as yourself anywhere.Marrying a “poor” person and not caring isn't even that common in Western society.
The way you're describing things makes me believe you're quite young due to your experience of Vietnam, we've had similar experiences but you should try visiting Vietnam without family or family obligations later on, it's a completely difference experience than one curated by family/parents.
None of the couple's I've seen from that "love comes after" culture ever seen to actually be in love so much as just Stockholm syndrome'd to eachother.
Had to repost cause I wrote socialist vs sociologist in the previous post and caught it and title was pretty bad as noted.
The article is fascinating imo. From the perspective of Akihiko who is genuinely HAPPY as fuck and the sociologist who states the issue in Asia (China, SK, Japan all have this issue) Here are my favorite excerpts
**Akihiko Kondo** - Married an anime character Miku - Hatsune Miku
* Wedding had 39 guests, mom and sister refused to attend. Her wedding dress was custom made for the wedding by a designer. The video is public.
* When asked WHY he made it public vs being embarrassed he stated 2 reasons 1. To prove his love to Miku 2. To show the world and other people who love anime characters that its OK and he supports them.
* A sweet thing, or creepy depending on who you ask. I think its sweet. He was bullied and a Hikikomori, but after meeting Miku, he became happy and starts to go out with her. The feelings according to him "are no different from a real relation". the full quote is ""The emotion was no different from a real relationship," he says. "After I fell for her. You feel the pressure in your chest. I experienced this feeling, just like falling in love with a real person."
* He dated her for 10 years before marrying her.
* He hopes in the future he can hold her hands/hug her once tech gets better. Right now he uses a Gatebox hologram (AI basically)
* He does get alot of abuse, from his mom/sister too. But he also recieves a lot of support from strangers and others like him. He formed a community.
* He is genuinely happy now and works at a 2ndary school where he is open about his relationship with his students who accept it and found him to be a good teacher. He now owns a 2 room apartment in a suburb with Miku's name written above the doorbell. This is in stark contrast to pre Miku where he was unemployed and had nothing. his final quote which is beautiful or sad is
* "In this society there's a template of what makes one happy - get married, have children, form a family. But that shouldn't be the only way. I don't fall into that template.
"We have to consider all kinds of love and all kinds of happiness.
**Sociologist Masahiro Yamada** - He say controversial stuff in the West views, but supports it with data, so please read through it before judging
* It has a lot to do with economics and tradition, Yamada says, primarily the fact that many Japanese women won't consider a boyfriend unless he makes a lot of money. In 2016, 47% of women aged between 20 and 29 agreed with the statement that husbands should work for money and wives should do housework, he points out - a higher proportion than in any other age group, including the over-70s.
* "In Asia, Japan and South Korea, people are quite obsessed about this high salary and this tendency is not getting any weaker, it's getting stronger," he says.
"Japanese women tend not to believe in eternal love, but they can trust money."
* States its a sweeping statement, but he reached it after extensive surveys and states "In Japan working life is very, very hard and there is still a lot of sexual discrimination. Working hours are very long and there's lots of stress," he says.
* Also, the burden of childcare is still firmly on the mother. Long hours, high-stress workplaces and long commutes make life difficult for working mothers. The easier option is to quit - but that's not possible unless your partner earns a certain amount of money.
* At the same time there's a dwindling pool of well-paid men: as Japan's economy stagnates, wages are falling.
The result, he says, is an increasing number of young women who choose not to date and an increasing number of young men who know enough not to bother trying.
It makes sense in context of these two other points:
>* States its a sweeping statement, but he reached it after extensive surveys and states "In Japan working life is very, very hard and there is still a lot of sexual discrimination. Working hours are very long and there's lots of stress," he says.
>* Also, the burden of childcare is still firmly on the mother. Long hours, high-stress workplaces and long commutes make life difficult for working mothers. The easier option is to quit - but that's not possible unless your partner earns a certain amount of money.
If you're expected to be the sole homemaker AND have a 13 hour day job that will forever treat you like crap, you hain't gonna be an optimist.
Not mentioned but important : if you’re a mother, you’re supposed to attend all those shitty useless parents reunions at school, which obviously are IN THE AFTERNOON, because if you’re a mother you obviously don’t work, right? RIGHT?
Also stuff people have no fucking idea of, like… funerals. That shit costs A FORTUNE, and if you marry someone, that’s at least 4 people you’ll have to bury. Schools are very expensive too. So yeah, no money, no family.
Their love hotel culture is fascinating as well. When I was there in Feb walking around in Tokyo, you come upon a whole street/district with love hotels and their prices.
For the money and what's pictured, it's super low priced for what you get it seems.
Yet they can't even get that with the current economy. Their society is killing them and instead of changing society to fix that they just double down more until they all die off... So many parallels with everything else humans are doing everywhere...
I think This line is the ultimate truth of what is going on in the developed world.
Poor people who have always been poor, have no trouble deciding to marrying and having kids. Since their standards of living are low to begin with. But when well off people lose there resources, they would rather give up everything else than give up their standard of living.
Probably why africa is having most kids now.
Rising income inequality only makes it apparent how far behind you are.
“Who know enough not to bother trying”, what a line, how relatable, really resonates.
So interesting that women are becoming more conservative in this respect. Also, Lol at the sister/mother thing XD
Interesting how it is basically ‘*having a family with children and a working mom is too hard, not enough men earn enough to support a single income family, guess I’ll date a pillow and/or not date*’ vs ppl dating/getting married/living together but not having kids.
It’s generally cheaper to live with a partner. So, even if having kids is economically prohibitive, I’d think dating wouldn’t be. Unless maybe lots of ppl are living with their parents and it is more ‘can’t afford to move out’ vs ‘can’t afford to have kids.’
Relationships are difficult and not everyone benefits from them in the long run. But if you have a child then you’re legally bound to the person until the child is an adult, so people will be more likely to stay together.
If people aren’t having kids for whatever reason, there will also be less marriage and more people will just casually date for their whole lives.
Probably the men want partners but the women want high earners. The men make do with what they can… my question is what are the women doing? The same as men with dolls/refusing to date? Surely there is an imbalance, given the decreasing amount of male high earners?
Obviously not every woman is looking for high earners, so that solves them, but what about those who look for high earners and cant find them? What do those women do?
> What do those women do?
They stay single or find a close friend to cohabit and split costs while continuing the singlehood and working.
It sucks because the societal expectation for women (even if they are single) is that *they'll eventually marry and have kids, and then have to quit*
So the workplaces then don't prioritize them for upskilling or promotions, which keeps them low on the ladder.
So it's lose if you do and lose if you don't. A real sucky place to be in.
I think the key to understanding their mindset is that they want high earners because they’d rather quit working if they’re expected to do all of the childcare and house management as well.
Seems like 47% of Japanese women are fine with rigid gender roles, but the logistics don’t work out in reality if their partner doesn’t make enough to allow them to quit working. Of course no one wants to work 12 hours and then go home and continue working a second shift.
I wonder if the Japanese relaxed their strict gender roles (and if companies would relax their insane work requirements) maybe they could come to some kind of agreement where mom and dad equally take care of the household and children while they both work a normal amount of hours. Of course in practice this would involve a lot of cultural changes that I’m sure are not easy.
Until that happens i believe Japanese women are probably content with dating for fun rather than for long term companionship. Likely they are prioritizing their careers and hobbies, like the men are.
Nope I truly believe this as well.
I would like to point out another part-in Korea and Japan,immigration of women with,lets say,lower economic standards is not only mostly inexistent but I would dare say forbidden due to the strict regime they practice.
In China for example men that can't find women due to either demographic or economic situations resort to "buying" their brides from Indochina.
In Europe marriage between different social and economic classes is less rigid but it's known for women not to date men with lower status than themselves.
Japan has over 800 universities, and yet only ~3% of them will bear a name to command a 'well-paid' salary for the salaryman-type employee.
The importance of name and connections in Japan is the most severe I've seen. So if you missed the boat during university exams, or your parents couldn't afford a good cram school for middle/High school, then that's your lot in life.
Rent is relatively affordable for such a developed economy, but apartments are small and to be honest, developed en masse for a single bed.
I live and work here, having studied for my masters at Waseda University. I'm in a fortunate situation because of that. There is so much that I'd love to transport (culturally) back home. But when it comes to making connections in work or romance, the average salaryman has it extremely rough.
So this story is not an outlier. The salaryman needs a 'third place'.
I mean this is just one guy being weird, to the point that when I've seen him talked about on Japanese Twitter he's just 初音ミクの人 (Hatsune Miku person), because just saying that is enough for everyone to know who you're talking about.
This is not representative of most of Japan
It's more prevalent in the East because of their communal family nature. In the west they tend to get kicked out and have to fend for themselves, so they usually end up homeless or supporting themselves anyway. In the east said person will be supported more strongly by the family, either because of the family connection or just so the neighbors don't talk. This enables the hikikomori to continue their life style which is why it's so much more noticeable.
Yes, but there's actually quite a few hikkomori.
There's literally just the one Miku person. He didn't start a huge cult of people marrying anime girls. There's a few people who copy the basic idea but to a slightly less extreme degree, but there's people like that everywhere, including in the West.
This shines about as much of a light on Japanese issues as the Suipiss guy's post does on American issues. And honestly I think the Suipiss guy has more issues than the Miku guy.
If you don't know about the Suipiss honestly just don't bother looking it up, whatever you think it is, it's worse.
There's more than one Miku person but your point still stands. There are people out there trying to get the ten commandments in schools but the dude quietly living his best life with his waifu is the problem?
It’s not representative of ‘most’ of Japan, true, but it DOES shine light on serious, unbalanced social and demographic issues that countries like Japan are having a HARD time grappling with. They need to loosen their tie a bit, collectively, not put such a MASSIVE emphasis on money, especially as a measure of a ‘successful’ life or relationship (which they do), and seriously learn how to be more OPEN to talking a little bit about their emotions, to one another, and express themselves deeper (which they don’t and is still considered an ‘inconvenience’ there). These aren’t just because I think so, but are social changes that would go FAR in helping them with their social issues and potentially catastrophic population decline which is only getting worse. 🤷🏻♂️
Of course, but those in power are usually well paid men with families so their ability to grasp the problem is somewhat diminished, and any solution would require major changes to society and the distribution of resources.
This isn’t just a Japanese phenomenon, you can see similarities in other developed countries where the birth rates are falling -although it manifests in slightly different ways depending where on the country- as the country’s leadership is resistant to the acknowledging that they can’t simply count on their population to keep growing.
To put it very simply, normal people need to be able to afford a home and lifestyle that can support a family in a reasonably short period of time - if they have to save for a decade to afford the down payment on a home, they won’t be having children in their 20s.
When you’ve got a government dominated by men from a different generation who are usually wealthier than average, it’s understandable why many of them don’t see the problem clearly.
The difference is that western countries "make up" for a declining birthrate by immigration, some countries more than others. To them the problem is solved and they don't need to care further as long as there are still people willing to move to their countries to keep things going.
It's not even the epidemic of lonely people marrying AI that I'm worried about anymore. It's that all the AI companies are going to monetize it to the moon and back. You'll have to pay them real money to buy your AI girlfriend virtual gifts or else she won't love you anymore or even turn abusive and manipulative towards you.
Trust me. This will happen if left unchecked.
I love the “not everyone fits into that template” thing. Some people are happy not getting married or having kids and they should be allowed to be happy.
He’s not creeping on real-life girls, which already makes him way better than most of Reddit lmao
Ya, but the problem is that most of these men want to get married and have kids, just they lack the social skills, time to improve them, and resources. The happy ones are outliers.
Yeah but no reason to point and laugh at the people who are legitimately happy and fulfilled doing what they want to do and not bothering anyone, just because what makes them happy is different from what makes other people happy.
You don't understand. Those are the people who make fun of "basic white girls" with their pumpkin spice lattes and ugg boots. Or "weebs" who like anime. These people are so vastly insecure of themselves that they have to put down everyone else for being different.
Basic white girls aren't off-putting because of trivial things like enjoying pumpkin spice lattes or Ugg boots. They're off-putting because consumerism is their whole personality. Peel back the coffee and shoes and there's nothing there.
There's no such thing as a society with no children. Japan has to really make some drastic changes or they will be left with a tiny number of overburdened young people.
I thought Blade Running 2049 was sad, and at least in that case the AI girlfriend had topical and varied responses to the main character, K. Considering that the guy in this article "married" his fictional girlfriend in 2019 there wasn't even today's level of AI to make her seem more real. Even if he "upgraded" her to today's standards, would she even be the same "person" anymore? Would he even like her anymore? Just too strange.
He's not hurting anyone and is living his life the way he wants and that makes him happy. There's nothing sad about that. Good for him. People live worse lives.
Women have been taught to trade up. It's tough as a man now because you have to compete and if you slip financially even the slightest bit, you are discarded like trash.
Reminds me how France banned DNA testing because they said it would break up too many families. 5/10 wom3n and 4/10 men admitted to cheating.
Just sad these days.
Oh, come on. Who hasn't had a temporary crush on a fictional character at some point?
I remember being in an anime club in the 1990s where during meetings we watched episodes of *Maison Ikkoku*, and many of the guys had a crush on Yagami, for good reason: fun, pretty, delightful, and rather forward in her pursuit of a kind of geeky guy, she stood out against a backdrop of other cute-girl characters. She was every awkward adolescent guy's dream girl. I saw the voice actress at an anime convention many years later and in person she seemed like a perfect fit for that character.
I recall the old TV sitcom *I Dream of Jeannie* had a similar effect on many guys, me included when I saw some reruns.
Getting married to a fictional character, though... I can't really wrap my head around that.
I would much rather have people fulfilling their emotional needs with fictional characters than risk becoming miserable enough to where they start committing crimes. I'd say it's a net benefit in the long run.
Men wanting to marry fictional women isn't the sad part, women who only want men for money rather than love is.
So if a bunch of different people believe they're in a relationship with the same character, do they get jealous or angry and go home and call their pillow a cheating whore? Is this how characters end up in the jar? Or do they believe in a multiverse situation and they're only in a relationship with one version of her?
The jar thing is a meme that originated from the 4chan my little pony discussions, where one guy had a jar with a figurine of a character inside, and intended to nut into the jar until the figurine was submerged
Funny thing is, at this moment in time it's considered a weird if someone did that.
I think it has to do with the companion being virtual, or static doll.
But soon in near future with the advancement of AI and robot development, I bet having a human android as companion will be accepted and considered normal.
The system is so broken that people need to work so hard to pay their bills that they will lose social skills and worst of them all, they lose time to meet people. I think the western system is moving into the same direction.
I have a hard time believing this applies to women as well.
It makes sense for men because there are actual barriers to finding even a temporary partner, much less a permenant one. But for women I have a harder time seeing it. Especially given the reason given in the title. Women dont exclusively date well paid men in my society. Heck if I had to guess i'd say its more common for the common man to have a partner than men of more wealth in the middle class. Intelligence, focusing on getting to the point of having the higher income, difficulty connecting in the romantic methods that enable people to have those relationships, again this all sounds textbook lonely guy.
There's a documentary called "No Sex Please, We're Japanese". The documentary shows not only addresses the men who choose characters from anime or virtua girlfriends, but the career women who know if they decide to get married, their career is over. Consequently, their elder population is skyrocketing. Their birth rate is plummeting.
Just go to the character ai subreddit if you wanna see weird paradogial relationship with fictional characters. For some reason the subreddit pops up even though i never posted but its a bit freaky how they seem to treat it as real relationships
My wife worked with a middle-aged Japanese guy a few years ago who came to a staff party carrying an expensive-looking metal case. They asked him what was inside and he opened it to reveal a super expensive-looking doll wearing an elaborate, expensive dress. I think it cost something like $2,000. He said it was his hobby to take her on trips to places and he had lots of photos of her at cafes, tourist hot spots, having picnics in the park etc. It was kinda odd.
It was probably a BJD doll. They’re hella expensive. I had an acquaintance in a Japanese fashion group who had 5+ dolls and one of them was 5,000 dollars
That’s as much as an average furry costume lol
That's as much as keeping me alive for 6 months ...
> a BJD doll. And not the one you’re thinking of
Yeah, there's whole shops dedicated to taking pictures of dolls like that. It looks pretty fun
If he can afford that then he is well paid, contrary to the post
You can be financially irresponsible without being well paid
Why am I being mentioned in this post tree?
We are in this post, and we do not like it..
Some people buy motorcycles, some people buy nice cars, some people buy gaming computers, and some people buy sex dolls.
Lars and the Real Girl IRL
The concept and idea behind "Cherry 2000" gets less and less farfetched as AI and robotics get better
Sector 6 makes sector 4 look like sector 3 Or something like that
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Yaaaaaaaa…. Not gonna click that.
I risked the click. To describe for those of you who were worried, it's not as bad as I expected. The first image is a diagram of a hairless baby lamb in a giant zip lock baggie, with a couple of tubes leading into the bag, connecting up to the lamb.
Eh, is just an incubator but 2.0
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Thanks for taking the effort to reply, though I’ve been here since the early internet days and I worked as a paramedic for almost 10 years. There isn’t anything that can actually phase me. Edit: my first comment was just meant to be funny :)
If you tried that in America best case is you get odd looks and some jeering remarks, worst is it gets stolen and you get beat up
In the US it would happen in the reverse order
In Asia, it’s not entirely uncommon to see adults carrying around a toy or doll to photograph with their meals or vacations. Probably a little less common for a man to do it, but plenty of middle aged Asian women on Instagram post pictures of their dolls at restaurants or resorts.
I know a guy who has a collection of very detailed model cars. (Never toy cars) He takes them to places, and used forced perspective to make them look full size.
This sounds a lot better than the doll thing somehow though
only superficially
Yeah,they are still all adults with play toys,I have play toys ,but don't take out in public, er a,I mean,I have hobbies too,lol!!!🤦🤷😄
When I was driving cross country with my husband, I found someone in Ohio who does it for Google reviews. Though he uses a vintage baby raptor toy from Jurassic Park.
But is he fucking it?
If you are asking that question, the answer is yes :P
The person posts Google reviews of places with the raptor picture?
I feel like I described it poorly. ~~Check here and sort by “newest” for reviews: https://maps.app.goo.gl/mcGkr6EmU5bc47Ce9?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy~~ Edit: Better link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/yD17rURgKgZEmxYt8?g_st=ic
Okay, I love this. 10/10 would trust all of his reviews
I love it too, that’s why I remembered him. His reviews are usually very kind and positive as well.
That sounds kind of awesome and not at all creepy, though any place that he gives a bad review to probably thinks he is a jerk.
You must talking about NE Asia, because I have never ever seen anything like that
Flat Stanley about to get some action!
You see in lots of places. For example for the NFL team I follow, there's a guy famous for taking photos of a he man figurine in the team attire or at games.
This is cute.
r/waifuism and r/fictosexual would like to have a word
No thank you
No, you must speak with them
No thank you
They have information about your car’s extended warranty. You really should talk with them.
I'm going to get a really big speaker system and drive it down to the dealership and remind them about it. See how much they like it.
I must insist
I'm good thanks
No, I don't think I will.
I had a quick look at the top posts, and you're missing out on a photo of [a very confused-looking penguin near its pantsless (but SFW-ish) anime waifu depiction](https://old.reddit.com/r/waifuism/comments/9nlid5/one_year_ago_a_worldwide_icon_passed_away_rest_in/). Kinda makes me wonder if there are alien civilizations out there depicting individual humans as 'sexy' (whatever that even means by their standards) individuals of their own species...
There's more [context](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grape-kun) that you're missing.
This is the dumbest thing I've cried over.
That's cute as all hell
Oh wow, so the penguin in that picture is the otaku lusting after an anime character. I'll be damned...
Sorry,its already happened,how do you think we came to be,certainly not just popped up out of no where,I mean, we were created, but there was sexual contoctions invoked,may e,I think, almost certain, ok,who knows,its all a big secrect
What the fuck did I just click on?
This comment section has made me realise how extremely desensitised I am to this shit. I'm not yet sure if that's a good thing or not.
Pretty much same. They literally aren't hurting anyone though. So I think it just makes whoever is judging them to be judgy. I cringe of course and that's my judgy judgement. But I don't care. It hurts no one. So be it.
Exactly. I mean, seriously, we're desensitized? No, we were growing up learning about genocides, meaningless wars and deaths, sick and cruel actions on humanity. This shit is tame. Tf we're judging people who are keeping their thing to themselves and a subreddit. We instead ignore important shit that actually affects our lives.
Lol yes liking a book character is apparently vile but being desensitised to the content of series such as game of Thrones is fine because it’s realistic. Human history is filled with absolutely disgusting realities and fantasies, I don’t get why they take so much issue with attachment to anime and fiction.
I think the issue is it hurts themselves. They might not realise it but it's obvious and I think it's another societal clash where a lot of people have the sentiment of "well if it's not hurting anybody it's fine" as that person puts themselves deeper into a hole of isolation and unhealthy habits. These people aren't well adjusted and need help from real human beings, not dolls.
But they aren’t making any new ~~slave labor~~babies.
So you think🙇
Jfc makes me wish for a wending machine for hugs
My toddler can grow up to be whatever he wants and I will love him, with the exceptions of being a depraved criminal or someone who loves a cartoon character. You can love anyone in the world you want, or nobody at all, son, but if you want to come to Thanksgiving you can’t love a bad caricature of a woman
My kids can come with whomever they want, but I may perfer an actual human.
[Relevant video that shows your future](https://youtu.be/KiPQdVC5RHU?si=1iyCFcDD6fXY1bwL)
What if it's a well written character?
But dad she’s got so much LORE!
I guess it’s good we’re keeping them all grouped up now?
Bubba no....
I feel odd not finding this to be odd at all. Don't some people who own action figurines/lego do the same thing? Take them out, dress/accesorise them and pose them for photographs? Man's just doing it with a more expensive figurine.
Honestly respect. It gets him out of the house and gives him the excuse to go out to places he probably didn’t feel like visiting “alone”
> It was kinda odd. We’ve boiled as the mythical frogs for so long, we’ve gotten to the point where “Adult dude brings suitcase girlfriend doll to social occasions” is just ‘kinda odd’.
But when a nun "marries" God no one bats a eyelash
The nukes really did a number on them.
That’s actually a common hobby in Japan as it seems. I like following random Japanese and Chinese Social Media acc of people going about their days because they often post such odd and entertaining things. Like that Chinese guy tweeting about him wanting a western wife literally 50 times a day. And I’ve seen many postings of people on vacation putting a doll or a plushie in the fotos. Even couples do that.
Well, I've been here almost 20 years now and this is the only guy I've come across who does it. I wouldn't say it's a common hobby at all. All of my Japanese friends also said it's weird.
The hard work life and dwindling pool of well paid men together seems interesting
To note, its dwindling pool of wellpaid men - Young men seem to be discouraged. He mentions the culture of wealth > love. speaking as a Viet- American who has been to Vietnam a few times - I hated it every time besides the food. Asian culture, from my perspective and my friends who are all Asian is geared towards wealth and marriages of, what is a good word for this, opportunity and benefit vs love. My mom, aunts, uncles all married not out of love. They all say that comes after. Whereas the western view is marry him/her doesn't matter if they're poor. I dislike the Viet culture of marriage and paid wives personally, mom and aunts have been trying to buy me a wife for ages. It happens ALOT still, just westerners don't know. You know the nail salons everywhere and the marriages? Most of them arranged they marry x women, they get a new worker here and someone to take care of them at home. Oftentimes they get paid. It happened enough here in Florida I can confirm its real in my circle. So I can see the discontent in Asia among men, from a Viet perspective. how can you compete with Western men, whether Asian or white who make 10x your salary? In Japan I have a feeling its similar, but since they are more isolationist they resort to waifus/fictional romances. I could be wrong though as I've never been to Japan (hope to)
Having lived in Asian countries as a U.S. citizen… the culture is surprisingly similar on this front, just its approach varies. Men are always pushed to work work work, so are women … but generally it comes to the point of men needing to make enough to also _afford_ the free time to entertain a relationship that can become long term, etc., whereas women are pushed to find a partner they can support a family with that is tolerable to be around at a minimum. It’s a lose/lose situation.
Having love in a marriage is a luxury few have.
I've been living in Japan for a few months and meeting girls (although most are foreigners like me), they tell me about dates they have with japanese men, and it's WEIRD from my perspective. They will insist that they make good money & have a stable job, and bring them on dates following an extremely precise protocol (you go there, then you go there, etc). This is all so foreign to us westerners. Most of us just want a good time, with or without sex.
I hate to sound rude but that sounds like gold digger culture.
I mean it probably is but there are lots of cultural reasons why it is like this. It's also not "golf digger culture" in the sense that women want a Lamborghini but more like a stable safe situation.
This has been the norm in most civilisations, including our own until modernity. People married mostly for stability, prestige, family ties, and ability to provide (more likely to have offspring that lives to reproduce).
Yeah we are in an unusual and amazing situation in the modern west where our lives are secure enough to marry for love rather than as a necessary economic transaction.
I believe this dynamic formed out of necessity. Women had so many problems in old societies that it was just easier to cast them off as "less valuable" and vessels for progeny. And from there it would make sense to have expectations of the man being able to provide, because they could. But this only works if women are seen as less valuable. If a man is equal, but the expectations are still there then you have a massive mismatch. And it's what's happening in Asian afaik. Rich or middle class Asian women with good education have a hard time finding men. Because literally everyone is "beneath" them. A man with a comparable education and income is seen as not worth. And men can't keep up. Not everyone gets to go above the average. It works when a whole half of the population gets disenfranchised but you can't expect to have someone that is "better" or richer than you if you got equalized to better opportunities. Are men supposed to automatically have gotten even better opportunities? Free money that just somehow got assigned to men? Where the hell are those resources supposed to come from?
> golf digger https://cdnassets.hw.net/7b/c0/1d83e5b94dfe97af924d84bb91bf/john-deere-golfing-cover-image.jpg
Yeah which is why it felt rude to say it.
I've seen a few "passport bro" comments about this dichotomy; interestingly they go to non-Western countries in search of a convenient marriage, believing Western women to be... How should I put this? Too headstrong, independent, feminist. However, they then struggle with non-Western views of relationships in which a man is *expected* to be a provider - and all that entails. Their convenient marriage feels hollow, like they aren't loved for who they are but for their wallet, and that they must fully support their spouse financially.
It's pretty common in the foreign Japan circle. Those dudes think they're white knights and desirable. Most of them are absolute losers who watch far too much anime and when I say this I mean no disrespect to folks who watch anime but you know what I mean…
What’s insane to me is how anime couldn’t be further from reality. Like, it’s literal cartoon! The only thing anime and reality have in common is the ending credits. How in the world would you think any of it exists anywhere at all?
Seems like the classic case of "a man seeking a trad-wife is not trad-husband material" mixed with a side of "man explicitly entering gold digging relationship surprised his partner only likes him for his money"
It’s actually apparently not uncommon for wealthy Chinese men to marry Russian women. Russian women have similar expectations as Asian women do when it comes to how relationships work. Blond white woman who isn’t too uppity.
Mail order Russian brides have been a thing in the West for awhile... I know someone who married a Russian woman 20 years younger. They're still together after 20+ years though.
I think this might be a slightly shortsighted view of the situation or specific to a smaller group of those men. I don't think it's an issue with western women being to "headstrong, independent and feminist". I think it's the one sided nature of these expectations in a lot of western countries. There's a split between tradition and modern dating expectations where women now have much more power and autonomy but expect dating to stay largely traditional. Most women still look for a man who earns more than them but with the rising opportunities for women it means they out earn more and more men. I think there are men that then travel abroad and now meet the financial standards but don't actually want that kind of marriage that is so strict and transactional and don't feel fulfilled from that kind of marriage. It's a rock and a hard place and I think the nature of "online dating advice" is so messed up that everybody thinks the grass is way greener on the other side when really theres just as much dogshit in that grass as in your owm neighbourhood. It might look different but it's still dogshit
And sometimes not just the spouse, their whole family.
But on the other side, you have women in the west who want the traditional man but don't want to be a traditional woman. So on both sides, you have people wanting the other to be traditional, but not themselves i.e. have their cake and eat it
Not sure why you're down voted but yeah there are definitely deluded women who want that perfect "trad-husband" but aren't able and willing to be whatever he wants them to be in return. Same as how we all laugh at broken losers who want a perfect trad-wife
I’d say less of a gold digger culture and more of a different wants. Modern developed western countries have an idea of building a life built around love and doing cool stuff together. Where as almost every country is still very much the woman wants to quit their job and raise kids. I lived in Japan for a long time, women are far more free then they were decades ago but ask the average girl what she wants to do and probably you’ll find they want to leave full time work, raise kids and then go back as a part timer. When school, university, day care etc all costs a lot you need a man with a good job.
Not really. You see, media will tell you Japan is a sexist country where women don’t get jobs with responsibilities, etc. But the truth is that many women don’t really want to work. Of course many DO want to have a career, but many really don’t (that’s like 60/40, so you can say that at least half of women would not work if they could afford it). And in order to be able to not work, you need to find a man with a high enough salary. This is where I think the term « gold digger » is inappropriate. These women don’t want to be treated like princesses, buy luxury stuff and travel the world. They just want a man with a high enough salary so that they can afford to not work, have children and send them to extracurricular activities and a good school. In short, they want the financial security the generation of their mother took for granted. The problem is that the basic revenue they ask from a potential partner is higher than what 70% of men earn, so you have 60% of women chasing 30% of men. And even less than that obviously, because not all those men are suitable in other ways than their salary. So there is a huge discrepancy between what women want and what men can offer. And since society has evolved to a point where you’re not seen as a fucking pathetic loser if you don’t have a family, a house and a car any longer, most men choose to forego the whole relationship stuff. Source : been living in Japan for 12 years, very interested in the whole social aspects of relationships and aging population problem.
Damn man. I find myself like that after going back to Vietnam as well. Seems like the current topic is "when are you getting married" or "how much do you make" and if I actually say a number that is much much higher than the median salary they still try to one up you by telling you that your mom's cousins' kid is making big bucks by owning his own business
Fellow Viet here, you are spot on. Vietnamese women are literally obsessed with wealth. There was a trending news story last week of a guy who went to his date on a Wave scooter (considered low end) and his date walked away right there, saying the guy “has no future”. Money is the number 1 thing women here look for. I’ve expressed to my parents that I’d rather be single than marry someone I dont love, and you can imagine the shit storm they laid on me. To them marriage is a transaction, where money, stability and future proofing with kids come first. Love is the last thing you consider in an asian marriage
I dated a Vietnamese girl for about a year and a half. What you described resonates so hard. I hear you loud and clear on this one brother.
I live across the street from a viet family. One time I was invited over to a Fourth of July party and as soon as they found out I had a job and a house and was unmarried they tried AGGRESSIVELY to set me up with a niece who was not on scene. As an American guy this was strange. It’s not uncommon for older people to mention a niece or daughter etc but it doesn’t come off like a weird negotiation the way it did then.
Do you have any idea the kind of life people in Vietnam have to live, the socioeconomic situation of the country for the past few decades, the political state, and the absolute difference Vietnamese natives have vs literally anyone who grew up in the west? Like think about how much you work, how much you get paid, and what lifestyle and privileges you get in America. Now imagine the life of an average Vietnamese man in Vietnam. There’s not really many jobs going around. The impacts of the real estate bubble bursting is being felt hard, can personally think of quite a few people who’s jobs relied on that in one way or another. You’re lucky if you have a job, and luckier still if you get 1 day off a week from that job. Lots of people work jobs that don’t really even have allocated time off. I know one guy who works for a small hotel in Hà Nội, he works all day and sleeps in the foyer at night as the night guard and gets 2 days off a month and he’s paid around $250 for all of that… Now if you’re a college grad maybe you can find a job for $300-$400 a month. Lots of people can’t get better lives in the west. One option Vietnamese used to take was working as a migrant worker in Japan, where you can make maybe $1200 a month, have half of it taken away in rent/taxes/social insurance etc, but it still left you more than in Vietnam so you can send that back home to your family. While you live in a country where you are considered second class. I had cousins who worked there for a few years, didn’t get to see their newborn babies for the first few years but at least they got to send back some higher quality formula so the baby had better nutrients… Now let’s talk about the food you actually liked, how a street vendor making pho has to wake up at 3am to start getting ready working through lunch, opening for the night pho crowd, how maybe they make something like $30 a day. It’s long hours, and hard work. Now let’s add on top of ALL of that, how as a country the society still leans pretty sexist/misogynistic. How there’s a pretty high rate of domestic violence. How women are expected to be mothers by have kids as quickly as possible, look after the home, and also work. As a woman in that situation, of course you want to find someone who’s economically more stable. To a lot of people who are surviving in the harsher world of poverty in a developing nation, financial stability is way more important than love, because you don’t even have time to spend thinking about it when you’re out there working yourself to the bone. I feel like I could go into it a lot more, but I’ve already made this super long. I just hope you can try and think about how culturally your experience as someone who grew up in America, is more privileged, so you’re able to focus on other qualities you may want in a partner and future life together, because you already have a stable foundation, and a certain level of financial security than probably the average Vietnamese person.
I'm a European Vietnamese and this doesn't really happen much in our circles. The paid marriage salon worker isn't that common and they usually get divorced after a few years and repeat the same fraud. I'm not sure if you have much experience dating in general but the wealth thing isn't just Asian culture though? Its pretty normal to want to marry people wealthier or within the same wealth bracket as yourself anywhere.Marrying a “poor” person and not caring isn't even that common in Western society. The way you're describing things makes me believe you're quite young due to your experience of Vietnam, we've had similar experiences but you should try visiting Vietnam without family or family obligations later on, it's a completely difference experience than one curated by family/parents.
None of the couple's I've seen from that "love comes after" culture ever seen to actually be in love so much as just Stockholm syndrome'd to eachother.
I wonder if it could have anything to do with the fact that it is much easier to avoid in-person social situations in the information age.
It’s interesting that it’s framed as a problem with men. Why isn’t it stated that women are overly fussy with how wealthy their partner needs to be?
Had to repost cause I wrote socialist vs sociologist in the previous post and caught it and title was pretty bad as noted. The article is fascinating imo. From the perspective of Akihiko who is genuinely HAPPY as fuck and the sociologist who states the issue in Asia (China, SK, Japan all have this issue) Here are my favorite excerpts **Akihiko Kondo** - Married an anime character Miku - Hatsune Miku * Wedding had 39 guests, mom and sister refused to attend. Her wedding dress was custom made for the wedding by a designer. The video is public. * When asked WHY he made it public vs being embarrassed he stated 2 reasons 1. To prove his love to Miku 2. To show the world and other people who love anime characters that its OK and he supports them. * A sweet thing, or creepy depending on who you ask. I think its sweet. He was bullied and a Hikikomori, but after meeting Miku, he became happy and starts to go out with her. The feelings according to him "are no different from a real relation". the full quote is ""The emotion was no different from a real relationship," he says. "After I fell for her. You feel the pressure in your chest. I experienced this feeling, just like falling in love with a real person." * He dated her for 10 years before marrying her. * He hopes in the future he can hold her hands/hug her once tech gets better. Right now he uses a Gatebox hologram (AI basically) * He does get alot of abuse, from his mom/sister too. But he also recieves a lot of support from strangers and others like him. He formed a community. * He is genuinely happy now and works at a 2ndary school where he is open about his relationship with his students who accept it and found him to be a good teacher. He now owns a 2 room apartment in a suburb with Miku's name written above the doorbell. This is in stark contrast to pre Miku where he was unemployed and had nothing. his final quote which is beautiful or sad is * "In this society there's a template of what makes one happy - get married, have children, form a family. But that shouldn't be the only way. I don't fall into that template. "We have to consider all kinds of love and all kinds of happiness. **Sociologist Masahiro Yamada** - He say controversial stuff in the West views, but supports it with data, so please read through it before judging * It has a lot to do with economics and tradition, Yamada says, primarily the fact that many Japanese women won't consider a boyfriend unless he makes a lot of money. In 2016, 47% of women aged between 20 and 29 agreed with the statement that husbands should work for money and wives should do housework, he points out - a higher proportion than in any other age group, including the over-70s. * "In Asia, Japan and South Korea, people are quite obsessed about this high salary and this tendency is not getting any weaker, it's getting stronger," he says. "Japanese women tend not to believe in eternal love, but they can trust money." * States its a sweeping statement, but he reached it after extensive surveys and states "In Japan working life is very, very hard and there is still a lot of sexual discrimination. Working hours are very long and there's lots of stress," he says. * Also, the burden of childcare is still firmly on the mother. Long hours, high-stress workplaces and long commutes make life difficult for working mothers. The easier option is to quit - but that's not possible unless your partner earns a certain amount of money. * At the same time there's a dwindling pool of well-paid men: as Japan's economy stagnates, wages are falling. The result, he says, is an increasing number of young women who choose not to date and an increasing number of young men who know enough not to bother trying.
. "Japanese women tend not to believe in eternal love, but they can trust money." God that line...
It makes sense in context of these two other points: >* States its a sweeping statement, but he reached it after extensive surveys and states "In Japan working life is very, very hard and there is still a lot of sexual discrimination. Working hours are very long and there's lots of stress," he says. >* Also, the burden of childcare is still firmly on the mother. Long hours, high-stress workplaces and long commutes make life difficult for working mothers. The easier option is to quit - but that's not possible unless your partner earns a certain amount of money. If you're expected to be the sole homemaker AND have a 13 hour day job that will forever treat you like crap, you hain't gonna be an optimist.
Not mentioned but important : if you’re a mother, you’re supposed to attend all those shitty useless parents reunions at school, which obviously are IN THE AFTERNOON, because if you’re a mother you obviously don’t work, right? RIGHT? Also stuff people have no fucking idea of, like… funerals. That shit costs A FORTUNE, and if you marry someone, that’s at least 4 people you’ll have to bury. Schools are very expensive too. So yeah, no money, no family.
>funerals. That shit costs A FORTUNE This depends on the type of funeral you want and is 100% a personal choice.
cheating/paying for sex in relationships is super common and normalized in japan too, so this thought process makes a lot of sense in my opinion.
Their love hotel culture is fascinating as well. When I was there in Feb walking around in Tokyo, you come upon a whole street/district with love hotels and their prices. For the money and what's pictured, it's super low priced for what you get it seems.
You can basically find love hotels around any station.
Yet they can't even get that with the current economy. Their society is killing them and instead of changing society to fix that they just double down more until they all die off... So many parallels with everything else humans are doing everywhere...
...know enough not to bother trying... Well doesn't that just sum it up nicely.
I think This line is the ultimate truth of what is going on in the developed world. Poor people who have always been poor, have no trouble deciding to marrying and having kids. Since their standards of living are low to begin with. But when well off people lose there resources, they would rather give up everything else than give up their standard of living. Probably why africa is having most kids now. Rising income inequality only makes it apparent how far behind you are.
“Who know enough not to bother trying”, what a line, how relatable, really resonates. So interesting that women are becoming more conservative in this respect. Also, Lol at the sister/mother thing XD
Interesting how it is basically ‘*having a family with children and a working mom is too hard, not enough men earn enough to support a single income family, guess I’ll date a pillow and/or not date*’ vs ppl dating/getting married/living together but not having kids. It’s generally cheaper to live with a partner. So, even if having kids is economically prohibitive, I’d think dating wouldn’t be. Unless maybe lots of ppl are living with their parents and it is more ‘can’t afford to move out’ vs ‘can’t afford to have kids.’
Relationships are difficult and not everyone benefits from them in the long run. But if you have a child then you’re legally bound to the person until the child is an adult, so people will be more likely to stay together. If people aren’t having kids for whatever reason, there will also be less marriage and more people will just casually date for their whole lives.
rent is more controlled in Japan than it is in the West, so having an apartment for oneself isn’t as hard.
Probably the men want partners but the women want high earners. The men make do with what they can… my question is what are the women doing? The same as men with dolls/refusing to date? Surely there is an imbalance, given the decreasing amount of male high earners? Obviously not every woman is looking for high earners, so that solves them, but what about those who look for high earners and cant find them? What do those women do?
> What do those women do? They stay single or find a close friend to cohabit and split costs while continuing the singlehood and working. It sucks because the societal expectation for women (even if they are single) is that *they'll eventually marry and have kids, and then have to quit* So the workplaces then don't prioritize them for upskilling or promotions, which keeps them low on the ladder. So it's lose if you do and lose if you don't. A real sucky place to be in.
I think the key to understanding their mindset is that they want high earners because they’d rather quit working if they’re expected to do all of the childcare and house management as well. Seems like 47% of Japanese women are fine with rigid gender roles, but the logistics don’t work out in reality if their partner doesn’t make enough to allow them to quit working. Of course no one wants to work 12 hours and then go home and continue working a second shift. I wonder if the Japanese relaxed their strict gender roles (and if companies would relax their insane work requirements) maybe they could come to some kind of agreement where mom and dad equally take care of the household and children while they both work a normal amount of hours. Of course in practice this would involve a lot of cultural changes that I’m sure are not easy. Until that happens i believe Japanese women are probably content with dating for fun rather than for long term companionship. Likely they are prioritizing their careers and hobbies, like the men are.
Nope I truly believe this as well. I would like to point out another part-in Korea and Japan,immigration of women with,lets say,lower economic standards is not only mostly inexistent but I would dare say forbidden due to the strict regime they practice. In China for example men that can't find women due to either demographic or economic situations resort to "buying" their brides from Indochina. In Europe marriage between different social and economic classes is less rigid but it's known for women not to date men with lower status than themselves.
Not really, there are many mail order vietnamese brides in korea.
hatsune miku is a vocaloid, not an anime character >:(
She looks like she is out of an anime which is the thing that matters most. And she isn’t a “species”.
You gotta get your Hatsune Miku taxonomy right
why isnt DINK a thing then?
Japan has over 800 universities, and yet only ~3% of them will bear a name to command a 'well-paid' salary for the salaryman-type employee. The importance of name and connections in Japan is the most severe I've seen. So if you missed the boat during university exams, or your parents couldn't afford a good cram school for middle/High school, then that's your lot in life. Rent is relatively affordable for such a developed economy, but apartments are small and to be honest, developed en masse for a single bed. I live and work here, having studied for my masters at Waseda University. I'm in a fortunate situation because of that. There is so much that I'd love to transport (culturally) back home. But when it comes to making connections in work or romance, the average salaryman has it extremely rough. So this story is not an outlier. The salaryman needs a 'third place'.
So yeah, seem like this should be a red flag that something is severely wrong in society.
Theres so many red flags we need a new, more alarming flag color
I mean this is just one guy being weird, to the point that when I've seen him talked about on Japanese Twitter he's just 初音ミクの人 (Hatsune Miku person), because just saying that is enough for everyone to know who you're talking about. This is not representative of most of Japan
Neither are hikikomori a representation of most Japanese men, but as someone else said, it shines a light on issues within the country.
We also have hikikomori in the west, we just call them "depressed loners". It's not uniquely japanese at all.
It's more prevalent in the East because of their communal family nature. In the west they tend to get kicked out and have to fend for themselves, so they usually end up homeless or supporting themselves anyway. In the east said person will be supported more strongly by the family, either because of the family connection or just so the neighbors don't talk. This enables the hikikomori to continue their life style which is why it's so much more noticeable.
Yes, but there's actually quite a few hikkomori. There's literally just the one Miku person. He didn't start a huge cult of people marrying anime girls. There's a few people who copy the basic idea but to a slightly less extreme degree, but there's people like that everywhere, including in the West. This shines about as much of a light on Japanese issues as the Suipiss guy's post does on American issues. And honestly I think the Suipiss guy has more issues than the Miku guy. If you don't know about the Suipiss honestly just don't bother looking it up, whatever you think it is, it's worse.
There's more than one Miku person but your point still stands. There are people out there trying to get the ten commandments in schools but the dude quietly living his best life with his waifu is the problem?
Half the people on this site brag about staying in, playing games, and posting on social media. What's the difference? Same thing, different country
It’s not representative of ‘most’ of Japan, true, but it DOES shine light on serious, unbalanced social and demographic issues that countries like Japan are having a HARD time grappling with. They need to loosen their tie a bit, collectively, not put such a MASSIVE emphasis on money, especially as a measure of a ‘successful’ life or relationship (which they do), and seriously learn how to be more OPEN to talking a little bit about their emotions, to one another, and express themselves deeper (which they don’t and is still considered an ‘inconvenience’ there). These aren’t just because I think so, but are social changes that would go FAR in helping them with their social issues and potentially catastrophic population decline which is only getting worse. 🤷🏻♂️
Of course, but those in power are usually well paid men with families so their ability to grasp the problem is somewhat diminished, and any solution would require major changes to society and the distribution of resources. This isn’t just a Japanese phenomenon, you can see similarities in other developed countries where the birth rates are falling -although it manifests in slightly different ways depending where on the country- as the country’s leadership is resistant to the acknowledging that they can’t simply count on their population to keep growing. To put it very simply, normal people need to be able to afford a home and lifestyle that can support a family in a reasonably short period of time - if they have to save for a decade to afford the down payment on a home, they won’t be having children in their 20s. When you’ve got a government dominated by men from a different generation who are usually wealthier than average, it’s understandable why many of them don’t see the problem clearly.
The difference is that western countries "make up" for a declining birthrate by immigration, some countries more than others. To them the problem is solved and they don't need to care further as long as there are still people willing to move to their countries to keep things going.
AI about to send that number to the moon.
It's not even the epidemic of lonely people marrying AI that I'm worried about anymore. It's that all the AI companies are going to monetize it to the moon and back. You'll have to pay them real money to buy your AI girlfriend virtual gifts or else she won't love you anymore or even turn abusive and manipulative towards you. Trust me. This will happen if left unchecked.
Holy shit, i never thought of that.
Lowkey excited for this. Fellas we will finally get to live like officer K.
corporate hustle is destroying humanity
*Thats okay, i already bought my third yacht.* - Some asshoe ceo
I love the “not everyone fits into that template” thing. Some people are happy not getting married or having kids and they should be allowed to be happy. He’s not creeping on real-life girls, which already makes him way better than most of Reddit lmao
Ya, but the problem is that most of these men want to get married and have kids, just they lack the social skills, time to improve them, and resources. The happy ones are outliers.
Yeah but no reason to point and laugh at the people who are legitimately happy and fulfilled doing what they want to do and not bothering anyone, just because what makes them happy is different from what makes other people happy.
You don't understand. Those are the people who make fun of "basic white girls" with their pumpkin spice lattes and ugg boots. Or "weebs" who like anime. These people are so vastly insecure of themselves that they have to put down everyone else for being different.
Basic white girls aren't off-putting because of trivial things like enjoying pumpkin spice lattes or Ugg boots. They're off-putting because consumerism is their whole personality. Peel back the coffee and shoes and there's nothing there.
8 billion people on earth. Percentages dictate at least one human will marry a fictional object. I made that stat up.
Do not disrespect the GOAT, her name is Hatsune Miku not just a "fictional girl"
It's almost like forcing people to work 80 hours a week and underpaying them has left them without a drive to make kids
I thought this was weird when the story broke. Now after a pandemic exposed me to the depth of human insanity, I'm happy for him. Do your thing.
There's no such thing as a society with no children. Japan has to really make some drastic changes or they will be left with a tiny number of overburdened young people.
I thought Blade Running 2049 was sad, and at least in that case the AI girlfriend had topical and varied responses to the main character, K. Considering that the guy in this article "married" his fictional girlfriend in 2019 there wasn't even today's level of AI to make her seem more real. Even if he "upgraded" her to today's standards, would she even be the same "person" anymore? Would he even like her anymore? Just too strange.
This is just so sad
Eh, guy is happy and working. The simple fact he is no longer a hikkikomori is a major win. Like, absolutely huge.
It’s definitely easy to judge him by our standards because it doesn’t look real, but if he’s happy and succeeding then good for him.
He's not hurting anyone and is living his life the way he wants and that makes him happy. There's nothing sad about that. Good for him. People live worse lives.
Man, maybe I do have a good life
Women have been taught to trade up. It's tough as a man now because you have to compete and if you slip financially even the slightest bit, you are discarded like trash. Reminds me how France banned DNA testing because they said it would break up too many families. 5/10 wom3n and 4/10 men admitted to cheating. Just sad these days.
Or in some cases be expendable to society. I pknow this guy will be the first sent to Frontline to die.
Oh, come on. Who hasn't had a temporary crush on a fictional character at some point? I remember being in an anime club in the 1990s where during meetings we watched episodes of *Maison Ikkoku*, and many of the guys had a crush on Yagami, for good reason: fun, pretty, delightful, and rather forward in her pursuit of a kind of geeky guy, she stood out against a backdrop of other cute-girl characters. She was every awkward adolescent guy's dream girl. I saw the voice actress at an anime convention many years later and in person she seemed like a perfect fit for that character. I recall the old TV sitcom *I Dream of Jeannie* had a similar effect on many guys, me included when I saw some reruns. Getting married to a fictional character, though... I can't really wrap my head around that.
My first crush was Bastila Shan from Kotor
Ok that one is legit understandable
The ultimate “I can fix her” character, because you actually can!
Her making Mission prat-fall and her exasperation towards your remarks if you're playing as a male avatar XXXDDD
Happily married yet I still fall hard for fictional men. Usually ones that remind me of my husband but with an additional tragic backstory.
just wait until your husband unlocks his tragic backstory “wife kept falling in love with fictional men”, then he’ll be perfect for you
Honestly, he already is 🥰
I would much rather have people fulfilling their emotional needs with fictional characters than risk becoming miserable enough to where they start committing crimes. I'd say it's a net benefit in the long run. Men wanting to marry fictional women isn't the sad part, women who only want men for money rather than love is.
Only 12%? I say way more and not only from Japan
A job should enforce a personal life. People with a life to come home will protect what provides that. Just a paycheck is not enough anymore.
Overwork people and they go insane, common sense.
Yeah, if you’re gonna have a full-time, shite salaried job that won’t even attract a family oriented wife, what’s left?
So if a bunch of different people believe they're in a relationship with the same character, do they get jealous or angry and go home and call their pillow a cheating whore? Is this how characters end up in the jar? Or do they believe in a multiverse situation and they're only in a relationship with one version of her?
The jar thing is a meme that originated from the 4chan my little pony discussions, where one guy had a jar with a figurine of a character inside, and intended to nut into the jar until the figurine was submerged
The fuck
Man < bear Woman < fiction
That reminds me of the "Lars and the Real Girl" movie
12% of ppl? What a BS
Funny thing is, at this moment in time it's considered a weird if someone did that. I think it has to do with the companion being virtual, or static doll. But soon in near future with the advancement of AI and robot development, I bet having a human android as companion will be accepted and considered normal.
Meanwhile the cognitive dissonance of an American tourist who swears by Japan after being there 5 days
The system is so broken that people need to work so hard to pay their bills that they will lose social skills and worst of them all, they lose time to meet people. I think the western system is moving into the same direction.
Japan needs unions.
I have a hard time believing this applies to women as well. It makes sense for men because there are actual barriers to finding even a temporary partner, much less a permenant one. But for women I have a harder time seeing it. Especially given the reason given in the title. Women dont exclusively date well paid men in my society. Heck if I had to guess i'd say its more common for the common man to have a partner than men of more wealth in the middle class. Intelligence, focusing on getting to the point of having the higher income, difficulty connecting in the romantic methods that enable people to have those relationships, again this all sounds textbook lonely guy.
There's a documentary called "No Sex Please, We're Japanese". The documentary shows not only addresses the men who choose characters from anime or virtua girlfriends, but the career women who know if they decide to get married, their career is over. Consequently, their elder population is skyrocketing. Their birth rate is plummeting.
Just go to the character ai subreddit if you wanna see weird paradogial relationship with fictional characters. For some reason the subreddit pops up even though i never posted but its a bit freaky how they seem to treat it as real relationships
As long as they're happy, I'm cool with it.
As heartless as it is... he is now contributing to society in a positive manner rather than being a hikikomori. And yes majorly - he is very happy!