Does catching a female co-worker’s eraser win her heart like it does in video games?

Seiji attempts to apply the romantic logic of dating simulators to the real world.

Spring has arrived in Japan, which is a time of great change as students graduate and move on to new classes while those in the corporate world are transferred and shuffled. With all these changes comes a great expectation of new relationships…possibly even romantic ones.

This is why spring is a common theme of so-called “gal-games” which are romance simulators that feature an array of pretty girls (hence the genre’s name) to pursue. Running from the innocent to the erotic, these games sometimes put the player in the role of the new kid in school, who must forge a romance with one of many unique classmates.

Our writer Seiji Nakazawa is an avid gal-gamer and feels he has mastered the ways of virtual flirtation. So, this spring it was time to kick things up a notch and try his moves out in the real world.

When it comes to gal-games, the real brass-tacks move – the hadoken if you will – is the “dropped eraser catch.” This is where a girl accidentally brushes her eraser off her desk only to have the boy catch it. As he returns her wad of rubber, their eyes meet and sparks fly.

This was where Seiji would begin.

Hovering over the desks of the editors to our sister site Pouch, he waited for one of them to drop an eraser. Considering everyone in the office worked on computers, this might take a whi…OH!! Momo dropped one!!!

However, with his reflexes dulled from the countless hours playing text-based gal-games, by the time the drop registered in Seiji’s synapses, Momo’s neighbor Mariko had reached over and already picked it up.

The art of the eraser catch wasn’t pure skill. Erasers were a lot like women; they were soft and smelled nice, but sometimes leave dust and bounce in unpredictable ways when dropped. This meant that a lot of luck would be required to get in the right position to retrieve it wherever it might fall.

In video games, situations where luck is a deciding factor can often be overcome by acquiring new items. In Seiji’s case it was the baseball glove that would increase his catch rate by 200 percent and give him plus two charisma.

With this new weapon, Seiji felt confident he could get on the route to a “harem ending,” which in gal-games refers to the ending where the character finds love with two or more of the female NPCs at once.

He quickly returned to leering at the women while they worked.

But again, one eraser drop in a day was already a miracle; there’s no chance it would happen again so soo…OH! THERE’S ONE NOW!

▼ “NOOOOOOO!!!!!”

LOOK ANOTHER ONE!

▼ “EYE OF THE TIGER!”

OH MY GOODNESS!!! AGAIN!

▼ “EXCELSIOOOOOOR!!!”

Seiji dived with all his might, putting his body on the line to catch the errant stationery. But three for three, he was able to snag and gallantly return each eraser to its owner.

After icing his left elbow, Seiji returned to the editors and asked them if they fell in love. Here are their responses:

Momo Momomura: “He’s neat and fun! I like him a lot…as a friend! If he picked it up normally it would have been fine, but this way was daringly fun and wonderful. If he was in my class I would want to be his friend.”

Mariko Ohanabatake: “I’m definitely more impressed by men who pick up the eraser rather than guys who are nearby but just ignore it…but what Seiji did was kind of overboard. Actually, among us girls he now has the nickname, “Keshi Gomu” (lit. Erasing Rubber).

Midori Hachiyama: “He’s very adorable. Personally though, I would have preferred it if he had picked the eraser up without me even noticing it and suddenly gave it back to me. It would have been better if he did it more gently too…you know, without slamming into a wastebasket. Sorry…”

 

While there were no outbursts of love, the three were somewhat charmed by Seiji’s moves and agreed to be friendly with him as long as he kept the court-mandated 30 meters away from them at all times. That’s about as close to a harem ending as he’s ever gotten in real life, so we can call this experiment a rousing success!

In hindsight though, the glove was probably too much. It was like adding a red mage to your party only because you want to spend the 20,000 gil and teach him thundaga, but you already have a black mage – something I think any ladies’ man can relate to.

Photos: SoraNews24

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