Wait a minute, I thought they already made "Otakus in Love"

by Chris MaGee

I was kind of excited back in November when we reported that the shoujyo manga "Fujoshi Kanojo", illustrated by Rize Shinba was being turned into a film. The story of a college student named Muto whose girlfriend, Yuiko, is a fujoshi, or a "rotten girl", the term used for women who love manga and anime, especially gay-themed manga and anime, got its start as a blog posted by someone going by the name of Pentabu. Of course any blogging success story is exciting for me for obvious reasons, but the idea of a female otaku sounded neat and the fact that it was being helmed by Atsushi Kaneshige, who did first assistant directing duties on Toshio Lee's "Detroit Metal City" didn't hurt either.

Then I saw the trailer for the film posted over at Nippon Connection. It looks a lot like Matsuo Suzuki's 2004 comedy "Otakus in Love" without the charm, or the star power. Swap out "Otakus'" leads of Ryuhei Matsuda and Wakana Sakai for star Shunsuke Daito (Crows Zero) and Wakana Matsumoto (Kamen Rider Den-O) and I'd defy you to tell the difference. Hell, the two female leads even share the same name! Well, follow the link above to see for yourself (plus head to Eiga.com for a full gallery of stills like the one above), but I guess you can't always have your expectations met... even when you have a movie about a girl who's geekier than you are.