Generation Bubble

The Game of Love: Video Brides, Cosplay, and the Atomic Bomb

Given that other great trend in Japan — internet suicide clubs — cosplay and civil unions between gamers and their video vixens seem quite tame. But it’s hard not to imagine that such strange pastimes are in part due to the horrors that were perpetuated sixty years ago in the name of ending the Second Great War. It’s hard not to imagine that the United States, a nation that also suffers from a strain of postmodern malaise all its own, had something to do with all the young adults wandering the streets of Tokyo dressed like some purple-haired action figure. Sixty years ago people failed to conform to themselves, to recognize the limits of their moral and intellectual capabilities and to work toward extending those limits so that they might master the consequences of their technologies. Now, as a consequence, these technologies have mastered people.