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[–]chandra 20 insightful - 1 fun20 insightful - 0 fun21 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Interesting article. I can definitely understand the idea that young men would get sucked into slice-of-life anime. I saw a few back when I was very into anime in my teens, and definitely found myself wishing that I could vacation in that life (the hyper-dedicated group of friends who spend all their time having fun together and have no real responsibilities) even though, being in high school with a big group of friends, my life was already as close as it gets to that in the real-world anyway! I can easily imagine how a lonely person could get totally sucked in and end up in an online slice-of-life anime girl LARP.

Seems a stretch to go from that to identifying as a girl though. Surely you'd have to really hate who you are and what your real life is like to actually create an entirely new anime girl persona rather than just incorporate your actual self into the fantasy. But even then it seems like a leap from role-playing a girl and actually identifying as one.