Things have been pretty dry in the world of Japanese animation and comics for me these days. Speed Grapher, a new title by Gonzo, has been good so far, but most of the emphasis in the fansubbing and scanlation communities seems to be on high-school romance (read: harem) comedies and shoujo, both of which don’t hold a heck of a lot of appeal to me. I tripped across a pretty good new manga this week, however: Densha Otoko.

The basic premise is that a typical male geek, socially-inept and utterly lacking in self-confidence (an easy sympathetic match for your average scanlation reader) is on a train, wallowing in his state of lameness , when a belligerent drunk starts yelling at the other passengers. The geek, reluctantly, stands up to the drunkard, winning the momentary adoration of the middle-aged ladies that were being verbally abused, as well as the appreciation of a pretty young lady. The rest of the series largely revolves around the geek (we never get his name) looking for advice from total strangers on 2chan as to how he should handle his prospective relationship with the young lady. Supposedly this story is based on an actual thread on 2chan, which was fictionalized into a book, this comic, and a television drama.

It’s very funny, especially if you happen to be familiar with socially-retarded computer geeks. Unlike most romantic comedies that are circulating in the scanlation community, it is heavy of character development and very light on titillation and cheap “harem” tactics. Of course, I write this having only read 8 chapters of it, so it may yet take a turn for the worse. Check it out.

(Drama Wiki Entry regarding the TV show)