The Virtual Girlfriend vs. The Real Girlfriend

Choose wisely

The Japanese have always been lauded for their technical prowess, their ingenuity and their downright sick and twisted sexual minds. From the country that brought you animation porn and blowup dolls (I’m sure they did), they now bring you a chance to go on vacation with your video game girlfriend.

In the first month of the city’s promotional campaign launched July 10, more than 1,500 male fans of the Japanese dating-simulation game LovePlus+ have flocked to Atami for a romantic date with their videogame character girlfriends. The men are real. The girls are cartoon characters on a screen. The trips are actual, can be expensive and aim to re-create the virtual weekend outing featured in the game, played on Nintendo Co.’s DS videogame system.

Still confused? Me too. If they created some sort of real life clone of my virtual girlfirend in a lab, then hell yes! But wtf is going on here in Japan? Can’t they just masturbate to online porn like the rest of us?

At the real Hotel Ohnoya, which opened its doors in 1937, the staff is trained to check in Love Plus+ customers as couples even if there is only one actual guest. Says Atsurou Ohno, the hotel’s managing director, “We try not to ask too many questions because we want them to be able to remain immersed in that game world.” Some devoted fans will go so far as to pay twice the rate—most hotels in Japan charge per guest not per room—to indulge the fantasy that they are not there alone.

Dude.

In his first visit to the real-life Atami, Love Plus+ gamer Shunsuke Kato planned to walk around the city and see the sights familiar to him from playing the game. One small hitch: his girlfriend, Manaka, was giving him the silent treatment. She was upset that he had been so busy at work that he had been playing the game only 10 minutes a day. “On days off, I spend one to two hours with her.”

This guy gave his real name? Nice thinking Shunsuke. Real-life chicks made up of cells and tissue are not exactly swept off their feet by a guy trying to win a vacation for himself and his Nintendo. Sadly, I can see this fad coming to the States any minute now.