The Japanese men who prefer virtual girlfriends to sex | Hacker News Reader

The Japanese men who prefer virtual girlfriends to sex

bbc.co.uk

11 pointspetercooper15 comments

I actually played Love Plus (there's a unofficial translation) for curiosity. I'd just read the article of the guy that married one of the game's girls and was wondering what made this game so popular. I had played some other visual novels and dating sims before, so I knew what the game was about and how it worked. I was looking for the small details that made the difference. (I played this about 2 years ago, so my memory may be a bit fuzzy)

You start by creating your character and quickly meet the three girls: A small 'lolita type' tomboy; a tall serious girl, with good grades and great at sports; and a kind of normal girl that enjoys fashion and pop songs.

You meet them at school, talk to them, go on dates and may start a relatioship with them. The typical japanese girl stereotypes, high schools life, normal stuff. But here's what the game did right: (I only played the courting phase of the game. Stopped when one becamy my girlfriend)

- While in the start I tried to be neutral and natural with the girls, there was one that I liked more. The game noticed this and increased the rate of encounters with that girl.

- I don't remember any of the girls being angry at me for one of my actions or choices. They sometimes were sad, but it wasn't a deal-breaker. In other games is easy to mess up a relationship with the girl. Not in this one. In fact, it is highly probable it is impossible.

- This is a big one. The girls change according to what you want/like! You, as a player, chose the girl according to her looks/stereotype/voice/whatever but, by playing the game, she responds to what you do by gradually becoming more suited to what (the game thinks) you want.

- The game is on the Nintendo DS, so you can always carry your "girlfriend" around. This is important for the next point.

- When a girl actually becomes your girlfriend, the game switches to realtime. You have to go on dates with her at a certain time, and this means you have to turn on the DS at that time of the day or she would be pissed.

When it got to the realtime phase I stopped playing. I didn't want to play a game that demanded that from me, and I already had a (flesh and bone) girlfriend :)

But what I learned from this is that, where in the other game you have to make an effort to actually achieve the girl you want, in this one is the opposite. You simply play the game and it adapts the girls to you! No effort involved.

The game is enjoyable, and the girls are well designed, different and interesting. Give it a shot if you have the means.

This occidental fascination with Japanese sex is embarrassing. Or perhaps I just feel that these "reports" don't lend enough academic gravitas to the subject and end up being weird, discomforting vouyeristic pieces that conflate several different phenomena without the rigour the topic deserves.

They make for great headlines though.

Most of these articles seem to largely overestimate the size of phenomena because the journalist doesn't understand what's actually happening.

It's not like everyone in Japan is an otaku or something, they happen to be more visible but you're just as ostracized there as if you were a super nerd in the West. And most of them (at least the ones I talk to) aren't disinterested in sex or having girlfriends or whatever. Just going to large events like Comic Market and the number of otaku couples you see prove otherwise.

The people like those in the article are basically the same as that one nerd who, through a combination of social inpetitude and bad circumstance, ends up being completely unwanted by any girl. In the west you'll get the same sort of people , and they end up turning into women-hating MRAs or something. In Japan they get a different outlet through dating sims or whatnot. Different outlets for the same problem.

A more benign reason for people not getting married or having sex or whatever is simply that people don't seem to have the time. In Tokyo especially, people are beyond busy. The Japanese elite must be proud of themselves, because they've seemed to trick an entire society into thinking that working 80 hour work weeks, and only taking 2 weeks vacation a year, is normal. It's bizarre and depressing. At least in my experience, Japanese want to have fun just like other people (the fun is usually more benign but still), it's just they have no time.

It's not so much virtual girls vs sex, it's virtual girlfriends vs real girlfriends. It's the wrong comparison to be making.

I'm sure if there was a way of having virtual sex with virtual girlfriends, that would be the choice that they make.

Speculating now - I wonder if this is related to 13 y/o western girls having virtual relationships with 1 Direction - an idealised, safe relationship as viewed through immature eyes?

If this is actually an accurate representation of the situation (the Otaku seem interested in "simple", unrealistic relationships, not necessarily uninterested in sex to me), the perspective of the female population would be very interesting. Do they share the lack of interest in sex? Are they still interested in it, but find the small remaining male population with similar interests sufficient, i.e. several of them date the same guy?

It's also good to keep in mind that sex is no longer required for reproduction, so the conclusion (dramatic population reduction until 2060) is overly dramatic.

An early guardian article [0] suggested that both men and women have moved away from relationships. In particular, women avoid a relationship because that would mean giving up their career and freedom in order to produce babies and do housework all day. It seems that Japan needs to update its expectations of a woman's role in domestic relationships before today's independent, educated women will desire stable relationships.

[0] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/young-people-ja...

Japanese women who immigrate away from Japan are usually pretty emphatic with the notion that they don't want to go back.

Why does this topic keep creeping up here? Are people really that interested in this stuff?

I was asking myself the same question. This is probably the 3rd or 4th time in the last couple weeks this same story/topic has popped up. I think it really just boils down to the old saying "sex sells" which also applies to news headlines.

Yes, because it has profound implications for future societies. I'd posit that the Japanese are further along the scale than anyone else and are worth looking at to see where things are headed.

> "At high school you can have relationships without having to think about marriage," says Yuge. "With real girlfriends you have to consider marriage. So I think twice about going out with a 3D woman."

> Exactly why they have retreated into fantasy land is not obvious.

Seems pretty obvious to me o_O

Correction, they don't prefer virtual girlfriends but their fear of denial is too great to permit them to get real women as girlfriends.

I'm not so sure of that.

>Nurikan says he keeps Rinko (his virtual girlfriend) a secret from his wife, and hopes he never has to choose between them.

It may be a fear of rejection for many, but it seems there are other contributing factors to the phenomenon.

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