[Charean]

My comment - when you read this, tell me - don't we do that here?!?!


Japan's Men Date Hot, Sexy Bots by Michelle Delio
2:00 a.m. Nov. 28, 2000 PST


At least 30,000 Japanese men are happily practicing their romantic
skills by attempting to virtually woo and win a girlfriend via a mobile
phone matchmaking service.

Subscribers to the "Love By Mail" service get to choose their girlfriend
from a lineup of women that includes a bartender, a flight attendant, an
office worker and a teacher. Once they've made a selection, they can
begin to date the woman via e-mail.

But Love By Mail participants don't simply exchange giggly e-mails that
rapidly escalate to more graphic love letters.

The men must carefully gauge their romantic moves. Those who promise too
much or don't move fast enough won't impress their woman, and will get
bitter e-mails in response. Likewise, those who attempt to talk about
sports or offer excuses about needing to work too often will also get
the cold shoulder from their new love.

Successful seducers are rewarded by increasingly romantic e-mails from
their sweetheart, in which she gradually reveals her "most intimate
secrets."

But there is one catch -– the women the men are corresponding with are
nothing more than pre-programmed computer scripts.

That doesn't seem to bother Love By Mail's intrepid subscribers.

"I dated Yumi for awhile, and I have to confess I became very attached
to her," said Wataru Uchida of Tokyo. "It was hard sometimes to remember
that Yumi wasn't real. She would yell at me and ignore me the exact same
way as all my other girlfriends have.

"I thought a not-real girlfriend would be more relaxing than the usual
kind, but I was wrong. Yumi could get very angry over small things.
Finally I decided to stop the relationship. It was too draining for me,"
Uchida said.

Another Love By Mail user, who preferred not to give his name, had a
more successful relationship with his bogus babe. In fact, their romance
was so successful that he said the experience of dating a virtual
girlfriend was almost like having a mistress.

"You have the happiness of a secret woman, a hidden relationship, with
none of the fear that your wife will find out and be angry. My
grandfather had the geisha, my father had the bar hostesses and I have
Love By Mail. It is maybe hard for others to understand, but these
substitutes, or additions, for the everyday relationship between a
husband and wife are well accepted in our culture."

Love By Mail was developed by Bandai, the Japanese toy company that
manufactured Tamagotchi, the squalling electronic pets that were so
popular a few years ago.

The company says that more than 30,000 Japanese men have signed up for
Love By Mail, available only to i-mode subscribers. I-mode is a mobile
Internet service offered by NTT DoCoMo, available only in Japan. The
service has close to 13 million subscribers.

I-mode, which stands for "Information mode" and is also a play on the
Japanese word for "anywhere," gives subscribers across Japan always-on,
inexpensive (about $5 a month for basic service), wireless access to the
Internet.

Sites developed for i-mode use cHTML (compact HTML), a subset of the
HTML coding used to create typical Web pages. There are also special
DoCoMo coding characters to create icons that represent concepts such as
joy, kisses, sadness, hot spring baths, noodle shops, the Shinkansen
train line and Japanese holidays.

Subscribers to i-mode can download images of cartoon characters,
weather reports, news and entertainment listings. But the most popular
services are the ones that allow people to interact with each other, or
those that provide advice, said Donald Edwards, a freelance writer based
in Tokyo who specializes in covering Japanese popular culture.

I-mode offers a service called "kind advice" about love, which promises
guidance on everything from what to wear on a date to how to act in a
restaurant. You can also check predictions for the success of the
relationship based on your date's horoscope and blood type.

There are also i-mode advice services for those who are having trouble
at work, those who don't know what to do after work and those who
can't figure out proper golf course etiquette, Edwards said.

"There's even one that lets you recreate your school years, except that
this time you can be one of the popular kids," Edwards said, adding he
wasn't surprised by the popularity of Love By Mail.

"It's a safe way for men to try out their dating technique without
having to worry about shaming themselves in front of a live girl," he
said. "The Love By Mail service is extremely realistic. So it's sort of
practice dating, and Japanese people are very interested in practicing
things. Doing a trial run in the virtual world makes sense culturally;
this way, they don't have to embarrass themselves or others in the real
world. It's actually a very kind and compassionate sort of etiquette."

Bandai wouldn't release subscriber statistics, but Edwards says Japanese

press has estimated that most Love By Mail subscribers' relationships
end within three or four months. Subscribers pay ¥300 per month (just
under $2) for their virtual girlfriend subscriptions.

I-mode has become so popular that many Japanese companies advertise on
it, or gear their advertising to it, as a recent Dakara sports drink ad
did with an advertising campaign on Tokyo subways.

"I am waiting for the liquor ads that advise you to drown your sorrows
over the end of your Love By Mail relationship with a bottle of their
product," Edwards said with a laugh.