New York Times Feature on 2-D Complex

Humberto Saabedra

Yoko body pillow sheet

The New York Times now features an in-depth article written by TokyoMango contributor Lisa Katayama on the recent phenomenon of older Japanese otaku embracing love and affection for anime characters normally reserved for more common relationships by profiling several different people who willingly demonstrate their affection for cute anime girls in different ways such as creating body pillow sheets, creating fan comics, and treating the characters as actual living breathing people.

The piece is startlingly revealing and demonstrates the different degrees of the fetish from the indifferent to the uncomfortably extreme end of the spectrum ending with the most human of desires, that being the quest for companionship.

Written by

Journalist since 2006, initially covering the retail wireless sector before pivoting to anime and manga trade reporting in 2008. Founder and publisher of AnimeNews.biz (2008–2017), followed by a 13-year tenure at Crunchyroll News (2011–2024) and launching K-Comics Beat with Comics Beat in 2024. Now stripping away consumer noise to build independent, data-backed intelligence desks focused on cross-border licensing telemetry, production committee balance sheets, and industrial supply-chain forensics.

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