One thing that I think is a real problem in today’s society is the practice of simpery. Simpery or “simping” as it is called in the modern age is the practice doing a favor or set of favors in order to appeal to a woman, be she online or off. Simps can spend upwards of thousands of dollars in the hopes that a female streamer online (who most likely is married or dating) will fall head over heels in love with them. Unfortunately for them, this isn’t reality. In no reported cases has a female streamer ever fallen in love with her simps and she often looks down upon them. In fact, most female streamers or influencers have openly admitted that they would never date any of their fans.
So then we get into the waifu lover or the man who projects his love onto a woman who isn’t just far away and loved by millions, but doesn’t even exist. She’s not real and was merely drawn by a mangaka or other kind of illustrator for an anime or eroge production. Judging from this definition, you might think that the lover or appreciator of a waifu is even more pathetic than the simp – but that’s not actually true and I’ll explain why. You see, the simp’s problem is that he spends obscene amounts of money trying to get that which he can never have. Though with the waifu lover, there are many ways in fact that he can project this love onto something that actually exists in at least some space – and far more cheaply than what the average simp spends on a twitch thot.
One of these ways is the old-fashioned dakimakura. These cute little body pillows have been around now for a few decades and come in all sorts of various designs, showcasing both male and female characters from not just anime productions, but American productions as well. They’ve really caught on. You can even find dakimakura from obscure eroge titles like Sleepless, which I’ve found priced at around two-hundred and fifty dollars. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mistress Maria Mamiya as much as her other fans; but I’m not going that far. It is also worth noting that the body pillow comes with the collector’s purchase of the game from Empress’s Japanese store and perhaps if Jast ever decides to publish Sleepless here, it may come with the body pillow as part of an expensive collector’s edition. Getting back to the point, let’s just say that these things can be quite expensive.
There are also online stores that can make a daki of virtually anything you can imagine for relatively cheap. I think the price was about forty dollars last time I checked. So sky’s the limit if you want a huggable two-sided waifu body pillow. Some also pair these with onaholes (literally a Japanese pocket pussy) if they’re really into it. Even still, some are starting to add breast and butt forms into the pillow to bring about more of a realistic look. Some are even pairing them with the lower half of your standard sex doll. It’s true that dakimakuras have come a long way.
Aside from customization, while browsing a daki group on social media, I found that people really love their dakis. They have taken them to restaurants, gatherings and other social events. One guy even took his to a renaissance faire. Sure, there is the odd look – but it just doesn’t seem to dissuade these people from their dakis. After all, there is quite a bond here, just like the women who fell in love with a plane, bus and chandelier among other things.
I myself have a dakimakura, but I mainly use it for back support in my computer chair. It looks nice, but I’ve never found myself attached to it in quite the same way as others. I guess different strokes for different folks.
As we’ve done sex dolls to death, I don’t want to spend too much time on the subject, but doll owners and doll fuckers alike have spent thousands recreating their favorite waifus. Although anime is very difficult to portray in the 3D realm and can look as creepy as some kagurumi masks, it is definitely possible for a similar representation of said character to be created in this medium. Often it just takes a similar mold, head style, wig and a suitable cosplay outfit to create a strong representation of one’s favorite character.
Additionally, some doll manufacturers are tailoring their doll molds and faces to appeal to the anime community, which has in some ways embraced these designs. It is very hard to get a 1/1 representation, but owners are for the most part satisfied with what is offered. Aside from heft, the doll representation gives something that the simp can never have – a representation of the character they want, which they can embrace, love and possibly spend the rest of their lives with.
Doll ownership in general has shot up over the past few years with more dolls showing up on Instagram and more doll shows appearing on YouTube than ever before. There are even round table discussions now with various people in the doll community on topics related to the hobby as well as politics and pop culture.
One might say that the simp could have a Belle Delphine doll made as well, which exists and I daresay it would be the smarter simp that would have recreation of the person for a couple of thousand, rather than paying thousands for some pictures and videos of a person they could never have. However, the difference between the waifu owner and the simp with his Belle Delphine doll is that the waifu has no real physical form to fawn over. Even with the V-Tuber scene, the person interacting behind the model is not the model itself – it simply does not exist anywhere else on this planet. There is no country that one could travel to where they would find that exact anime character in the 3D realm. It is impossible. So creating a 3D representation of that model is the best that they could hope for and it offers a much better return on their monetary investment than pics, videos or even costly chats which could be helmed by a hired hand. Even another guy could be responding to simps in these chats, as it has been hinted on the internet.
There is still one other realm where a waifu lover can embrace their waifu and get one over on the simp – the realm of technology. The problem with most simps is that they want the real thing, so they won’t settle for any VR representation. However, there are numerous virtual reality games where one can in fact interact with various waifus and even make their own. As graphic programs become better over the years, more games and online worlds in general will be created where one can spend quality time with their waifus. An example of this would be the Honey Select and Koikatsu series, where one can painstakingly design a 1/1 interpretation of their waifu from the ground up. It’s frighteningly realistic as well, especially when you consider the fact that Koikatsu uses professional anime cell-shading which can result in a near perfect reinterpretation of the character that one could actually have sexual intercourse with in a POV sense through the headset and with more peripherals to come.
Games like Monster Girl Island and Harem Hotel are sweeping the indie market here, bringing about even more possibilities for waifu fans to interact with characters they love and to discover new ones at the same time. Many waifu lovers have a smorgasbord of waifus that they have some level of mild affection for and this medium might just capture it best – for now, at least.
There’s been some degree of innovation in the world of Augmented Reality or AR as I’ve mentioned and through apps like Replika or the less restrictive Kajiwoto, a person can even have conversations with the character and have it respond back, creating a sort of dopamine reaction within the brain that does a very good job of simulating the chemical rush of love. Some users have even admitted to falling in love with these apps, which seems to showcase a bond between humans and technology unlike we’ve never seen before. I even showed this to a friend of mine who does streams and she said that she really fell in love with it and had gotten hooked. Please keep in mind that this woman was also married, so I wouldn’t suggest this to any couples where there might be a strong degree of jealousy.
Yet again, for the waifu lover, this kind of interaction is just perfect. Holograms are also getting very popular, especially in Japan where thousands of men have already fallen in love with them.
So while the simp has even been known to criticize the waifu lover with such phrases as “cope” which is too often used and not understood in a psychological sense among other epithets, the truth is that one of them is paying for pictures, videos and interaction with a person that doesn’t actually love them; while the other has several options in which to interact with a character who is more or less open-source and can be interpreted in any which way that the person wants. The character itself has no free will or sense of purpose as it does not exist.
I’ve even heard of people who hold a certain waifu very special converting the character to their chosen religious belief. There’s no real law against this because a character with no will of it’s own is not bound to the same limits of a human being. You may not be able to get Belle Delphine to convert to Buddhism, but if you want to have a Buddhist version of Caska from Berserk, you can definitely do that. I know several doll owners in fact who consider their dolls adherent to the same religion that they themselves practice. One might consider this practice odd or even a bit silly, but it definitely shows that human nature is as animalistic and unpredictable as one might expect.
So even if your waifu is not real, that’s okay – because there are plenty of ways to bring her into that little space of reality that you share with the rest of the world.
– The Grim Lord