Nisan and Nemutan

[Sakunyuusha]

Love in 2-D, an article in the New York Times written by Lisa Katayama.

The article talks about Japanese otaku who are so-called "2-D Lovers," men who have given up on finding love with women in the real world and who have fabricated relationships with anime pillows, dolls, or toys instead. They interview mostly men who have relationships with body pillows but the journalist covers the whole gamut of otaku 2-D love.

She makes references to Comiket without actually calling it Comiket, and you'll appreciate her attempt to placate the fans back home by translating the term "moe" as being both 萌-based and 燃-based. But for the most part, the article is very general and superficial.

And that's what it's supposed to be. Ms. Katayama is writing for the New York Times, not for Newtype or Anime News Network. This is for many Americans a first look at hardcore otakudom.

But given the timing of Equality Now's campaign, one does wonder ...................

 

[elgringo14]

It's not too bad for a "mass media" article.
The author really describes something she has seen. Of course this is insisting on what is a minority of "fans" (I hope so), but the mass medias like extremes obviously.
Some of the comments are really interesting. At least they are not plagued by "fan rage". The other side of the story:

http://www.tokyomango.com/tokyo_man...s-is-online-the-main-protagonist-is-nisa.html

 

[guy]

A little late but just a couple thoughts.

This is for many Americans a first look at hardcore otakudom.

The problem with the NYT article is that it makes no attempt to explain that Nisan is part of hardcore otakudom, and instead through its generalizations makes otakudom appear to be normal in Japan. Basically, "Look at how we here in America, reading the Times, are so civilized, and how Japan is so culturally backwards".

While everything Lisa Katayama said about Nisan is factually true, the problem is with passing it off as normal (even Nisan is considered eccentric by other otakus). This is why WaiWai got shut down, because it only ever reported about extremely rare stories but made it seem like such oddities were commonplace in Japan. For a cultural piece, Katayama could have picked from any of thousands of topics (regarding Japan) that are far more relevant to Japanese as a whole, and not just a fringe group of otakus. Harboring on this topic is just an easy way to gain page views as a "journalist". Sadly, as many NYT readers won't have the opportunity to see the real Japan, these kinds of articles will give them a false impression of what Japan is really like.

The biggest blow to Katayama's article is her source for statistics (which she chose not to name, but claims it was first-hand and accurate). JapanProbe has a good critique on the piece:
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=11750
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=11681

NYT has since made corrections to the statistics (no doubt in response to criticisms of Katayama's sources).