Densha Otoko/The train man - a review
Some people would dismiss it as yet another wish fulfillment fantasy, but I found Densha Otoko to be the best j-dorama I’ve ever seen. Supposedly based on a true story, it is about an otaku who saves an office-lady on the train, and his requests for relationship advice on the 2ch bbs. Classic archetypal cinderella story of personal transformation, ie, a bildungsroman.
The 2ch board posters in unison: kita!!
You can read the reviews and episode guides of the drama here, so I wanted to draw attention to certain points about the series that interested me:
1) Product placement as an alternative to conventional advertising
As I have noted before, K-drama and J-doramas are a full hour per episode, unlike their Western counterparts which are approx 40 minutes with 2-3 intervals for advertising. Apart from the different rigors this places on episode plot structure, I wondered how they get by without this source of revenue. Product placement is usually a supplement to conventional advertising, but in Densha Otoko, it seems to have taken the fore.
How to product place ren’ai games
Densha Otoko is foremost a celebration (?!) of otaku/geek culture in all its forms, and geek culture is primarily consumerist. As such, every otaku scene in the show became a huge opportunity to place products. Notably, Gainax gets the most airtime with Evangelion-related material popping up everywhere. The OP animation (itself a paean to otaku culture, based on the Daicon IV opening) for the series was done by Gonzo, some of whose founders were from Gainax. I didn’t notice any Gonzo works featured, though. Bluemist has compiled a list of anime products identified in each episode.
WTF?!? / They really do know their main demographic
Sidenote:
I predict that the fictional anime series written into the drama ‘Moon Surface Bunny Weapon Mina’ will become a real spinoff Gonzo series. It already has a character design and an OP (Missing Link’s Start me @ starting love), and might appear in an OVA - the way Genshiken’s fictional ‘Kujibiki Unbalance’ was produced.
More than just a mascot?
2) Densha Otoko as an archetypal story
So Joseph Campbell et al are vindicated once more by the immense popularity of yet another archetypal story. The cinderella/transformation story plays on the empathy of the audience to relate to and identify with the protagonist, which is why Densha Otoko appeals to so many people: they see themselves (to varying degrees) with him, and relate to the alienation of modern society that drives him to seek solace in the online community. While the anime/dating sims/figures and other otaku toys feature prominently in the series, it is clear that these are representative of all individual/antisocial pursuits. Otherwise, the series would have only appealed to otaku and not have the second highest viewership for its airtime. It is clear that the series resonates with universal themes that are made relevant for our time. It is part of a long tradition that has given us stories from pygmalion to pretty woman - which was the soundtrack for Densha’s geek transformation sequence:
Before: a typical akiba-chan
After: a playa
Because of this, I am unconvinced that it is meaningfully ‘based on a true story’. It fits too well into an established genre of storytelling that operates on our ability to empathize with the sense of it-could-happen-to-you inherent in a true story - our need for wish fulfillment.
3) Representations of cyber/RL co-existence
To me, the overarching theme of Densha Otoko is how online and real-life existences merge. The 2ch community of anonymous posters are better substitutes for the protagonist’s emotional support than his family and friends - the happenings of an online community have impact and reach beyond the internet. The board becomes a platform for the transformation of individuals, which is a theme repeated throughout the show (note the basketball player, the divorced husband, the bedridden girl, the designer/artist couple, the seiyuu and others). The best visual representation of this, is perhaps the sequence where an ascii image of Densha meeting Hermes seamlessly fades into the scene of him waiting in real life:
Talk about 2D complexes
4) Miscellaneous weird stuff
Check out the evangelion freak
If this is the new style of synchronized DDR I don’t want to play