電車男 Densha Otoko

It is also available in French and German

B1 has this book called "電電車男〜ネット発、各駅停車のラブストーリー〜". It was supposedly a compilation of 2chan posts of a real-life romance story about a man and his train crush. The book was outstanding because of all the encouragement that the 2chan forummers gave the man, in the form of elaborate Shift_JIS art (you have to see it to believe how amazing the artwork is!) and words. The man was a otaku and never had a girlfriend before. Yet he was driven by his interest in his crush to help her and other women on the train when they encountered a mini crisis with a drunken salaryman. Even though the man could help very little (at least he bought some time so that the other women could get the train conductor to help), his crush was touched and asked him for his contact details.

She gave him a thank you gift of elaborate Hermès cups and saucers, which was too extravagant a gift so everyone on the channel saw it as a sign that she reciprocated his interest. They encouraged the man through his transformation of awkward otaku to a presentable young man who could confess his love a few months later. 

The reason why I brought up this book was because I recently saw some related online articles and posts. Gawker.com reported some weeks ago about subwaycrush.net where girls can post pictures of men they admire from duh, the subway (there is even a UK version called tubecrush.net). I think this is a cheeky rebuttal on all those men who take pictures of women on trains. Ah if only my office would allow me to carry camera phones, I'd be arrested =D but then again I will be taking only pics of women *hahahah* and the MRT commuters nowadays are totally NWR. Note: there is also another version subwaycrush.com, sans Bilder.

Actually I just visited those two sites. I find it very fun to be able to rate the men (haha, this could become a naughty pleasure!). My cousin and I used to do this except I had an additional grade called NWR ("Not Worth Rating"). I think the UK men are more to my taste *winks* and I strongly suspect that most of the posters on the USA version are gay men. But from what I have seen on the USA version (I stopped at Page 10), I like (maybe the first 3 are in order?):

Suited up
Dorky cute
Smarty Pants (hate his glasses)
Purple people eater
blurred blond
lemme fix my hair
Lost Lad

So now that you all know how my tastes run (I don't care if you think it is TMI, you can stop reading), I shall move onto mentioning this real-life USA 電車男 Densha Otoko story, which happened a long time ago. A Vimeo employee Patrick Moberg had a crush on an Australian chick, Camille Hayton, and successfully tracked her down after he posted an illustration of her on his website.

While their relationship only lasted two months, I still think that it was really cute and cool while it lasted. How will you be able to find love if you don't try right? I applaud the guy's effort (I am curious if he is attached now *KPO*). In the meantime I shall continue clicking on subwaycrush.net. Hahha.