Can a Nerd Get the Girl?(Japanese anime, manga fans )

Byline: Kay Itoi

Pity the poor otaku. Obsessive-compulsive recluses, they are the diehard fans of Japan's world-famous subculture hobbies--anime (animated films), manga (cartoons) and videogames. More comfortable in a virtual world than the real one, they are notorious for their lack of social skills and even less fashion sense. The general rule is that otaku can't get dates.

So why, suddenly, are they hot? Chalk it up to the new "Densha Otoko" phenomenon. Last spring a (supposedly) real-life 22-year-old otaku--whose online pseudonym is Densha Otoko, or Train Man--began posting notes on Internet message boards. He'd met a woman waaay out of his league on the Tokyo train. Because he'd never had a date, he had no clue how to ask her out, where to take her or even how to talk to her. Fellow Netizens posted hundreds of makeover tips. Two months later Densha Otoko had acquired a new wardrobe, given up anime and his thrice-weekly visits to the otaku mecca of Tokyo's Akihabara district, and become a different man. He also got the girl.

A new book chronicling this Pygmalion-like transformation has sold 520,000 copies since October. A movie is slated for release in June. The hip lit magazine, Da Vinci, features a big article in its February issue entitled "Love of Otaku," with comments by former otaku and the women who date them. "Once the most unlikely love interest, otaku are now the center of attention," it declares. Even businessmen are bullish on otaku, it seems, according to a survey by Tokyo's Nomura Research Institute. Japan's 2.8 million otaku spend $2.7 billion a year on DVDs, comics and fantasy figures modeled after anime characters. Their Internet literacy and networking habits make them hugely influential, beyond mere purchasing power. "Their passion and creativity will be a ...