Do androids dream of electric sheep? Do otaku date non-2D women?
These are the eternal questions of our times. In the case of the latter, it seems that are some otaku who are keen to branch out into three dimensions.
So much so that, well, there’s an app for that.
Otakoi (Otaku Love) is a dating app for otaku. The promo images are just awesome. If you’ve seen these ads popping in your feed, you know you’re in trouble!
Needless to say, these images are AI-generated. The presence of fake photos of couples might be a warning sign for a dating app, but since the target demographic is otaku, the slightly plastic, 2D look of the images is actually just right.
Is this a realistic (albeit brutally honest) depiction of the target male user — or an insulting one?
The app is free for women but only free for men until they match with someone, after which there’s a monthly fee. (Women also pay a fee for certain options.) We’d be very interested to know how many female users they actually have, though! (They may all be offline, getting fit at the otaku gym.)
Otakoi has been around for some time (several years, from what we can tell) but has received renewed attention in August and September for its viral ads with AI-generated couples.
If these ads don’t seem believable, it’s for a good reason!
