Having an anime crush usually drains your wallet, but here’s how your 2-D passion can make you richer instead.

Hard-core anime fans will be the first to tell you that while the hobby has a positive effect on their happiness, it’s not nearly as beneficial to their bank accounts. Video streaming services, Blu-ray box sets, and miscellaneous merch all add up, and together they can leave otaku without much cash for anything else.

In particular, the monetary outflow floodgates tend to get flung wide open for fans with a 2-D anime crush, since nothing says “I love you” like dropping as much cash as possible on merchandise bearing your favorite character’s likeness. However, about a year ago Japanese Twitter user @st0708_, who’s a massive fan of Heshikiri Hasebe from anthropomorphized katana boy franchise Touken Ranbu, had an idea.

https://twitter.com/st0708_/status/1085403861165268992

@st0708_ decided to channel her love for Hasebe into financial responsibility, and in January of last year, she started her project. Basically, her plan, which she called “oshi savings” (oshi being one’s anime crush), hinged on making regular payments directly to Hasebe. For example, in the photos above, those are payroll envelopes, into which @st0708_ put the anime character’s salary for each month, making the transaction official with a stamp of a hanko personal seal.

▼ She also made a wallet for Hasebe, fashioning it out of a Meiji The Chocolate box, a surprisingly versatile artistic medium.

https://twitter.com/st0708_/status/1085870806201118720

Since Touken Rambu is a series that takes place during the samurai era, ideally @st0708_ would have paid Hasebe’s stipend in gold coins. Since precious metals are harder to come by in modern Japan, though, she dd the next best thing and paid her beloved in 500-yen (US$4.54) coins, the largest metal denomination of yen.

It’s a fun, and funny idea, but how long would @st0708_ be able to keep it up before becoming bored and/or tempted to cut Hasebe off? A week? A month?

Try a whole year (and counting). @st0708_ recently tweeted an update saying she’s continued her oshi saving plan for the past 12 months, and when she recently converted all those coins into paper money, she was shocked to find that she’s saved 435,000 yen (US$3,955) so far!

https://twitter.com/st0708_/status/1222053478786187265

Online reactions have pretty much fallen into the categories of “This is amazing, “I’m going to try this too,” and “What was your payment schedule to Hasebe?” In regards to the last, @st0708_ says she didn’t have strict deadlines so much as monthly targets. “When I was out doing errands and paid for something, if I got a 500-yen coin as change it would go into Hasebe’s payments” she explains.

The saving strategy can even be applied to anime characters who wouldn’t realistically be earning a salary. For example, if your favorite character is a student, @st0708_ says you can think of the payments as being for their tuition, or their general living expenses You can even set up a mini shrine to your oshi in your home with a collection box, if they happen to be of divine status in their story (or your eyes).

Of course, with all the money hard-core fans spend on anime merch, you could make the argument that this doesn’t really count as “saving” money if in the end you just go out and bow the amassed was of cash on merch that you put off buying while making payments to your oshi. But that’s not an issue for @st0708_, because she says she’ll be using the money she’s saved to pay for moving expenses and setting up the new apartment she’s moving to soon…though she does also say that naturally the new apartment isn’t just for her, but for Hasebe as well.

Source: Twitter/@st0708_
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