Brazil’s public television station TV Culturesurprised its audience by broadcasting a special report that unravels the meaning and relevance of the word “waifu” in otaku culture. The expression “waifu” comes from the Japanese pronunciation of the word “wife” and is used to refer to female anime characters for whom otakus feel a special devotion.
The TV Cultura report highlighted how these waifus go beyond being simple fictional characters, becoming objects of a passion that resembles a “virtual courtship.” Notable examples were explored, such as Rias Gremory from “High School DxD“, Mai Sakurajima from “Seishun Buta Yarou“, Megumin from “KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!“, Yor Forger from “SPY x FAMILY“, Asuna from “Sword Art Online” and Rem from “Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu“.
- The investigation concluded that Rem is considered “the best waifu in history” according to the opinion collected.
This unique focus on otaku culture did not go unnoticed, generating a variety of comments from the audience. Many expressed their surprise and curiosity at seeing how national television addressed a topic as specific and peculiar as the culture of manga and anime. The TV Cultura report opens a space for dialogue about the diversity of interests and how subcultures are gaining visibility even in conventional media:
- «Who the fuck is Rem?».
- «Rem is superior to any waifu you can think of right now».
- «Whoever was in charge of taking the examples for this report is truly a person of culture.».
- «As a professional in the field, I am sorry to say that this entire report is completely wrong. The waifus on the list are based on popularity, but they are very old. Anyone knows that Frieren is on the list of current waifus, and that Emilia is better than Rem, I recommend that they delete this video before we start reporting it as “fake news” and are sanctioned by YouTube».
- «I didn’t understand the report. They start talking about men and machines, then about men having romantic relationships with AIs, and then they talk about waifus from different Japanese anime. What does one thing has to do with the other?».
- «They didn’t put my favorite waifu, Nami, on this list».
- «I was taking it pretty seriously until I saw they mentioned Rias Gremory».
- «And where is Madoka Kaname? Why did they leave her off the list? Anyway, good report».
- «Anyone who says Rem is the best waifu ever clearly doesn’t know Azur Lane».
- «Okay, but the waifu list doesn’t include any of the Gotoubun no Hanayome quintuplets, or Chizuru Mizuhara, so it’s categorically wrong. At least they mentioned Mai Sakurajima».
- «I just came to say that Ram and Rem are the best waifus ever. Culture has finally arrived in this country».
- «I ended up here because of the section of the article that talks about “Waifus”, but I ended up finding a very complete article on a very common current topic, it is undeniable that people today are less and less interested in searching for a true companion They may even be interested, but when they take into account the difficulty involved in this, they end up giving up or creating false hopes. Therefore, this discourse that finding someone today has become something extremely exhausting, relationships work in a mechanized way whether they want it or not and many times based on games of interest and disinterest, apart from that we have many of these relationships full of unrealistic and unattainable expectations, so in this way an artificial couple is created, created to measure, who understands you. and that fits all your expectations».
- «Congratulations to the channel, finally a quality article about the otaku world without being the nonsense that other channels talk about. I am no longer one to watch open television, but if you ask me which channel I like, I will say TV Cultura. Someone give the person who wrote this article a raise or bonus.».
- «I ended up on this video because a friend sent me the link to this article, but I’m really impressed that TV Cultura did an article about anime without sensationalism! Congratulations on the initiative, but I think whoever wrote this article is a Rem fan! And about these robots, we already have something similar with the creation of the Vtuber AI called Neuro-sama, which can talk to its creator and friends, in addition to singing, speaking normally and I think that sometimes it even has a sense of humor. Of course, it’s still virtual, but it’s impressive when you realize that an AI can already do this without almost any help. And also, I already saw something similar to this article in a TecMundo video, where people in the comments said that they preferred to live with humanoid robots than with humans, whether due to discussions, personal tastes or feelings. I admit that I was a little scared, because despite imagining something like that, I didn’t think we were close to reaching that reality.».
- «Finally a television that managed to represent a fact for those who watch anime, without sensationalism or anything like that».
Fountain: Youtube
