With more and more women identifying themselves as otaku, Japan’s super hardcore fans of things such as anime and video games, the odds of an otaku male finding a like-minded girlfriend aren’t so bad. Recently, there have even been professionally run matchmaking events to help romantically compatible anime-loving singles find one another.

Still, it’s human nature to always want more. Not too long ago many guys would have considered a girl a keeper simply for accepting their otaku lifestyle, but one group of illustrators has thought up four specific ways they’d want their girlfriend’s otaku leanings to manifest.

Twitter user Fujiyoshi Yuripo recently shared a photo he snapped of this illustration. The accompanying text identifies it as coming from something called Anime-kai Anthology Comics.

https://twitter.com/2444yrp/status/486852060030058497

Titled “We Want this Kind of Otaku Girlfriend,” we’re sure its creators have their reasons for the four traits they list. All the same, we couldn’t help but notice a potential drawback lurking beneath the surface of each point.

1. Even though it makes her legs fall asleep, she sits seiza-style as she watches her favorite anime.

As someone whose wife happily sat next to him and watched every episode of Attack on Titan, I can personally attest to the upside of being with a girl whose idea of movie night is more Patlabor 2 than The Bridge Whisperer of Downton Abbey.

There was a movie called that, right?

But…

The appeal of seiza is a bit harder to pin down. For those who’ve had the pleasure of never trying it in person, seiza involves folding your legs under yourself, then perching on top of your shins.

Cramps and loss of circulation are both common side effects of extended seiza sessions. Sure, it might be kind of cute to have a girlfriend who’s so reverential towards anime that she sits formally for it, but if you and your lady friend are marathoning a 13-episode TV show, will she call you a wuss for asking if you can move to the couch before the season finale?

2. She’s really good at taking pictures of toy figures.

The ostensible benefit here is that when you bring her back to your place and she sees you have multiple Fate/Zero figures on your shelf (because really, how can you be expected to pick between Saber in her armor and motorcycle outfit?), she’ll be impressed instead of walking right back out the door. Plus, if you’re a shutterbug yourself, you can exchange photography tips.

But…

Figures are generally built at a smaller scale than the character they’re based on. If your otaku girlfriend has honed her attention to minute details, when she looks at you she’s going to notice every blemish, pimple, and patch of stubble you missed shaving.

3. She gets excited playing erotic video games by herself.

Plenty of otaku males enjoy a good X-rated game, and what’s good for the gander is good for the goose, right? A girl who enjoys some scintillating illustrated porn is also going to be all the more understanding of your own use of such aids to get yourself through a sleepless night. Plus, might her tastes in electronic entertainment make her all the more frisky with you?

But…

Umm…men and women tend to have different tastes in porn, so even if your otaku girlfriend has amassed a sizeable collection of erotic titles, odds are it’ll be composed of different genres than the ones that float your boat. As we talked about before, there’s a huge market in Japan for female fans of homosexual male-on-male anime and video game erotica, which probably aren’t the sort of scenes dudes are fantasizing about reenacting in the company of their girlfriend.

There’s also the added stipulation that she gets excited playing erotic games “by herself.” It doesn’t take Great Detective Conan-level intelligence to come to the logical conclusion that if your girlfriend’s got her heart pumping from interactive porn, and you’re not around at that particular moment, she’s probably just going to take matters into her own hands instead of waiting patiently until your next date.

4. She’ll turn your lascivious delusions into a manga.

The opposite of the above situation, now we have a girl who’ll listen to your darkest desires, then transform them into narrative artwork with an appropriate layout, dialogue, and sound effects.

Umm…you know what? We’re kind of stumped here. With erotic games, theoretically, we could imagine the following series of events:

1. Play erotic game with girlfriend
2. See something kinky happen
3. Half-jokingly say, “You know, we could try that…”
4. If she seems receptive, go for it!

But drawing a manga based on your sexual fantasies? Isn’t this reversing the process, and getting farther away from the eventual goal of hot, dirty, real-life lovemaking?

And…

We’re assuming that said manga is supposed to be of a reasonable level of quality, and not just a scribble of a bunch of suggestive stick figures on a single sheet of loose leaf paper.

OK, so the woman you’re dating has taken your ideas and made, by the standards of the genre, a good, enjoyable erotic manga. Now what?

Producing a quality piece of work takes time and effort, and if your girlfriend has the chops to make it happen, odds are her manga ambitions don’t stop at the bedroom door. With modern technology, it’s easier than ever for creators to cheaply and easily distribute their work around the globe. Heck, once they’ve built up a fan base, professional artists and the publishing houses behind them can’t seem to stop fan-produced translations and unauthorized scanned copies from flooding foreign markets.

What we’re asking here is, do you really want erotic manga fans the world over to follow the eight-volume saga your girlfriend wrote about the pudding fetish you revealed to her?

Fujiyoshi Yuripo is pretty skeptic about these four qualities too, saying, “Looking for a girl like this is a good way to end up single for life.” We don’t know if we’d jump all the way to that conclusion, as there’s no guarantee that an otaku girlfriend’s interests and hobbies will lead to the four unpleasant scenarios we’ve outlined here. At the same time, though, it’s not a certainty that those four traits are a fast track to romantic bliss, either.

Hmm…maybe you can’t pick a girlfriend strictly based on a checklist after all.

Source: Jin, Twitter