Men are disappearing from Japan. They call themselves herbivores. Usually vegan or vegetarian, they dislike flesh in all forms, even sexually. They are self-centered and don't want to be bothered with the needs of real women.
Tagged in the domestic media over the past few years as hikikomori (socially withdrawn boys), soshoku danshi (grass-eating/herbivore men, uninterested in meat, fleshly sex and physical or workplace competition), or just generally feckless, Japan's Y-chromosomed youth today elicit shrugs of "why?", followed by heaving sighs of disappointment from their postwar elders and members of the opposite sex. With the country's economy stagnant at best, its geopolitical foothold rapidly slipping into the crevice between China and the United States, and its northeast coastline still struggling with the aftermath of disaster and an ongoing nuclear crisis, the reaction to a failure of Japan's men to take the reins, even symbolically, has evolved from whispers of curiosity to charges of incompetence.
What gives? As anyone who has watched Japanese or Korean pop videos knows, the popular image of men in Asia, seen from a western perspective, is more effeminate than macho, rife with makeup, stylised hairdos and choreographed dance steps. Even so-called punks in Japan lean more to Vivienne Westwood than Malcolm McLaren – more familiar with fashion spreads than the spitting in the street.
The phenomenon of Japanese men is being followed by the metrosexuals of Western Civilization. Many young men today are uninterested in the demands and confines of family and children. They still have sex, but only because western men have not become enculturated by virtual women instead of real women.
Why the generational malaise and indifference to sex? Theories abound. The most provocative to me, a Japanese-American and longtime Tokyo resident, is that Japanese women have become stronger socially and economically at the very same time that Japanese men have become more mole-ish and fully absorbed in virtual worlds, satiated by the very technological wizardry their forebears foisted upon them, and even preferring it to reality. "I don't like real women," one bloke superciliously sniffed on Japan's 2channel, the world's largest and most active internet bulletin board site. "They're too picky nowadays. I'd much rather have a virtual girlfriend."
Virtual girlfriends became a sensation last summer, when Japanese game-maker Konami released its second-generation of its popular Love Plus, called, aptly, Love Plus +, for the Nintendo DS gaming system. Konami skillfully arranged for an otherwise deadbeat beach resort town called Atami to host a Love Plus + holiday weekend. Players were invited to tote their virtual girlfriends, via the gaming console, to the actual resort town to cavort for a weekend in romantic bliss. The promotion was absurdly successful, with local resort operators reporting that it was their best weekend in decades.
We'll get there eventually.
Japan leads the way in sexless love | Roland Kelts | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk