Maybe because it wasn’t that good? :) Your first statement read true enough that I took the rest of your post seriously.

That and the fact that there are way too many people online who are completely and utterly un-ironic about themselves and their beliefs — like the people you were mocking in your first post. I’ve read enough out there that I don’t take logic or rationale for granted.

I’ve just learned that it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Also, I asked why nationality matters in the comprehension of irony. Your answer, to be sure, was a cutting remark that sliced me to the core, but it didn’t really answer my question.

Anyway, if summoning an articulate response is so arduous, just answer with something else that calls me an idiot and let’s call it a day, shall we?

34% of Japanese between the age of 30 and 34 are virgins? Give me a break. Not even WaiWai would get away with made up statistics like that, but all you suckers fell for it.

The real story here is what is happening to professional journalism at the NYT.

http://www.mutantfrog.com/2009/07/27/nemutans-revenge-some-fact-checking-and-reaction-to-the-nyt-story-on-anime-fetishists/

The degree of personal alienation involved in both the 2D love and hikikomori movements is something even those of us Westerners who consider ourselves lonely may have difficulty parsing. I don’t want to make sweeping generalizations about Japanese culture — for all its perceived homogeneity, it’s still very diverse — but whatever cultural forces are at work here, I think it’s a lot more productive for everyone to try to go beyond the existential revulsion to begin to examine what shapes these sad souls.

Good answers will be hard to come by. But good questions are a place to start.

captcha: indomable displays

Nisan is the legendary “SO RONERY” 2/4chan super star

http://www.atalude.net/2007/07/27/word-of-the-day-ronery/

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d38/Moniques3Monsters/more%20funnies%2010/ronery1.jpg

I don’t know anybody who has relatives buried here at all. Everyone, and I mean everyone, gets cremated

And the cremated remains are then ________.

Exactly. WaiWai, the English-language gossip column from the Mainichi that is the supposed “source” of this story, got in trouble for making up “kerrazy Japan” stories and only publishing them in English, because their Japanese readership would, quite rightly, call bullshit on this kind of story.

That’s not to say the Japanese don’t lap up this kind of thing, just that it stays in the weekly National Enquirer-style magazines and everybody treats it with a pinch of salt. The problem with WaiWai was that foreign journalists would read it, see that it was attributed to the supposedly respectable Mainichi, and run it without fact-checking. Hence most of the so-called facts about kerrazy Japan that you’ve seen in Western media. Used schoolgirl panty vending machines? Fallacious crap. Naked sushi? Even more vacuous rubbish. The list goes on…

There’s a lot of incredibly interesting things about Japan that are well worthy of discussion but “my god those hikkomori are so lonely and socially inept, I bet they date inanimate objects” isn’t one of them.

On one hand, yes, the cartoon-pedophilia and incestuous (he calls himself “nisan” ie. big-brother…ew) elements are definitely disturbing.

On the other hand, loneliness really is pretty rampant in Japan sometimes. I’ve seen/felt it first hand, and I have a lot more going for me socially than these guys, aside from the language and culture barrier. Japan… so much to love here, and so much to make you really deeply worried for the future.

I’m inclined to view 2d-love as someone described it above – an extreme coping mechanism, or a very desperate solution to a desperate need. Save your judgmentalism for something useful.

He’s devoted so much of his time to a being that isn’t real, who cannot communicate with him, and that will never talk back to him, not matter how much he talks to it.

He’s crediting life experiences he could have clearly archived by himself to this non-entity, and his vision is clouded in such a way that this non-existent creature is stopping him from actually getting on with his life.

I think we should all pray to God that he gets over his silly delusion…

Then it occurred to me that plenty of people here in the western world are marrying fictional caracters and devoting their entire life to them, too.
It has been going on for ages, literally, and is definatley not frowned upon by our society. So who are we to judge?

I don’t know, I did indeed read Lisa’s article over and over in order to try to understand all this fuss you’re making and, to me, it doesn’t necessarily talk about armies of middle aged guys strolling around in public with their cute cushions; it is more about guys who love some manga/anime characters, be them in the form factor of a cushion or printed on paper or on a computer screen. I think you should make yourself a favor and read that article once more.

#40 For example: Telling that a character is 10 or 12 is catchier that not telling her real age (who will take time to read the wiki after all?!).

Well, man, it makes a huge difference and it’s a good practice to state such facts. One thing is to fantasize about humping Gwyneth Paltrow, one thing is to fantasize about humping her 5 years old daughter Apple. Former’s okay, latter is for sickos. Do you get the difference?

Oh, and to #30 Paradesign – there’s a French movie named “Monique” about a man who orders a Real Doll in a drunken stupor after his wife leaves him.

Saw it on Australian TV (yay SBS!); it’s quite clever, and very funny too.

http://www.amazon.fr/Monique-Albert-Dupontel/dp/B00006H30P/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1248433131&sr=8-1

Of course, being in Europe, that edition will be region-locked to DVD zone-2, so might have to rip or pirate it to watch in a different region. (North America is region #1)

cheers,
Not Queen Mab

If you think that’s “sad”, you’re missing the point of the article. The men who do this choose it *because* of the lack of judgment and demands. It’s pressure-free. Read it.

“I think we should all pray to God that he gets over his silly delusion…”

I don’t want to be an atheist asshole (but I am), but is that supposed to be ironic?

I can’t say I’m not raising an eyebrow at this, but seriously, I’m not that bothered. Even the apparent prepubescence of the characters is fine, because they’re not real children or images of real children. Assuming the presence of a “slippery slope” is the same illogical bias some people apply to pornography and other sexual interests in general.

As long as they don’t harm anyone, I’m OK by it. They do what fits their life. I’d rather they live this way and be happy and harmless than force themselves into a conventional but ill-fitting relationship and end up hurting not only themselves but other women (or men).

All in all, though I may not swing that way, I don’t really look down on them. It’s an awkward part of Japanese (and American, though I guess not as much) society. Unfortunately, a lot of people lack the willpower to actually accept it.

Hopefully this sort of thing doesn’t get blown wildly out of proportion and start making people go “DOWN WITH ANIME!” on us.

pun intended.

….oh and 2nd and 3rd on the commenters who mentioned that no 10 yr. old kid has breasts like those.

“Nisan” isn’t a name as such. It means “older brother” and is used in lots of contexts. For example, what a hooker calls her john. Although the abbreviated, familiar form at use here would probably be limited to someone who was literally someone’s older brother.

All of which says nothing about the presence of a (fictional) girl who is “10, maybe 12 years old” in an X-rated video game. At the risk of cashing in all my multicultural cred at once, I believe that Japanese society as a whole might benefit from having a bright light shone on certain portions — but I leave it to the Japanese to best decide how to handle that. (And please, don’t generalize about Japanese society from these extremes!)