Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2010

Charisma Man

Regarding “Man of the Moment” (Feature, July 16): I’m sick of this lame cliché where people (Western women primarily) believe that just because a guy shows up here he can get hot chicks. The very fact that he’s here means he has a college degree. Do college graduates get hotter women than non-graduates? How many hot women do you know are happily married to guys who are scraping by? Probably not many. I know that American guys can cook and pick up after themselves just fine. Before I met my wife, my place was big, clean and fun, and I cooked all my meals. How many Japanese guys fall into this category? While it may be true that most guys had trouble getting good-looking girlfriends back in the States, that’s no fault of the guy’s. American guys with good jobs and educations but not model looks go to a bar with their model lookalike friend, and 100 percent of the time the girls will pick the model lookalike. Japanese women look for a little more. Yes, of course they still want a guy to be somewhat handsome, but they want a provider even more…

People are also failing to take into account that foreign guys are a lot more aggressive than Japanese guys. If a girl wants to meet a guy at a bar, there’s a much higher chance for her to hook up if she goes somewhere where there are more foreign guys.— mistertroy2010

I live in Japan without a degree. I’m not bad looking, I don’t have a lot of money, but girls seem to like me. It’s really not that hard to get girls in Tokyo, but I think that’s because there are so many of them.—okiman

I kinda partly agree with this, in that it’s definitely more difficult to get numbers nowadays than it was five or six years ago. I’m not sure what it’s like in the regions, but in Tokyo the women seem a bit more worldly than they used to, especially in old pick-up joints like Heartland. It’s still quite easy to score in Muse later on, though, so drink can play a part. The strip is just too awful for those of us who’ve been here longer than a few months.

I’m not an English teacher and get a good whack, with a flat on Omotesando. That said, you get utterly tired of women in Japan who’re only interested in you because of this. First they check your watch, then they ask you where you live. Very difficult to meet a genuine woman in Japan.—voldrea

The main problem I always had about Charisma Man is that it is actually racist against Japanese people. In the end, it is Japanese people who are made out to be the idiots. When we laugh, we are often laughing at them, not at Charisma Man. The foundation of the story is that even a Western loser is better than any Japanese man. Is that not the reason why so many of us Westerners love this comic? So, sorry, Metropolis, I don’t find Charisma Man “spot on.” He is not a parody, he is a stereotype, and a racist one at that. Is this something we should celebrate?—twocents

Taken from the Metropolis online comment threads