#133 Densha Otoko

Seeing that The 40-Year-Old Virgin, the story of a geek triumphant, is rocking the U.S. box office it's as good a time as any to turn you all on to how dorks are faring in the land of the rising sun.

The story of Densha Otoku (Train Man) began as a message board thread. Our hero, while riding the subway, inadvertantly saved a beautiful woman from being groped a drunken lech. The woman thanked him profusely and insisted on taking down his address so that she could send him a gift in return. This may not seem all that strange until you consider that Densha Otoku rarely, if ever talked to women. He was an otaku after all; a member of a chaste Japanese underclass who spend their time playing video games, worshiping anime characters. They don't get out much, hence the literal translation of otaku: "in the house."

Train Man had a hunch that the woman he'd rescued would contact him, so he rushed to his message board buddies to beg for help. And an Internet-centric take on Cyrano De Bergerac begins. The resulting message board thread became a best-selling novel, then a movie, four different manga and an exceptional television show (torrents here).

The Densha Otoku phenomenon is so pervasive that Napoleon Dynamite, a film with little chance to translate to Japanese audiences, is being released there with the title Bus Otoko.

But not all Japanese are pleased with this often saccharine story of the nerd who becomes a swan. Toru Honda, the author of Denpa Otoko (Radio Wave Guy), thinks that ditching your dorky ways for a woman is a cop out. His book posits that otaku live a near priestly lifestyle and that their love for anime characters and Jpop idols is a honorable expression. Densha Otoko`` is an otaku's surrender to love capitalism," he says. "What the main character should've done is turn the girl into another otaku and bring her to Akihabara.''

Either way, my people are getting their day in the sun. Maybe someday we'll merit our own super-cool neighborhood here in the states.