Resort Attracts Men With Virtual Girlfriends
Would you want to spend a romantic weekend with the virtual love of your digital life?
Long a favorite of lovers and honeymooners, a Japanese beach town with fading sparkle has found a new tourism niche in the wired age by drawing young men and their virtual girlfriends.
One recent sweltering summer's day, a tour bus from Tokyo pulled up at a sun-kissed beach at Atami, a Pacific coast resort southwest of the metropolis, and disgorged more than a dozen excited, iPhone-clutching young men.
The determined youngsters, paying scant attention to the bikini-clad girls frolicking on the sand, instead headed straight for a bronze statue that depicts Kanichi and Omiya, a couple from an old love story set in Atami.
The focus of the men's attention -- and of their smartphone cameras -- was a tiny black and white square, a two-dimensional barcode that, thanks to "augmented reality" (AR) software, brought to life the object of their desire.
"Look, it's like I'm in a snapshot with her," said Shu Watanabe, 23, as he showed off his iPhone display, featuring himself next to the image of a doe-eyed cartoon character named Rinko, a smiling high school girl.
Rinko may only be digital, but try telling that to Watanabe or the legions of other fans of "Love Plus," a dating sim or simulation game that is played on handheld Nintendo DS consoles and also boasts AR applications for iPhones.
Its creators, Konami Digital Entertainment, have long thrilled young men obsessed with high-tech, manga and anime, known as "otaku," by letting them chase virtual girls in the alternative universe of their digital dreams.
The hit video game made headlines when a 27-year-old Japanese man known only as "Sal 9000" staged a tuxedo wedding late last year, which was watched by thousands online, with his favorite cartoon girl, Nene Anegasaki.
Read more at news.discovery.com
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