There is a trend where people are falling in love with fictional characters, even marrying them. The term to describe this phenomenon is waifu. According to the dictionary, “Waifu is a term for a fictional character, usually in anime or related media, that someone has great, and sometimes romantic, affection for.” However, the actual origin of the word waifu means wife: “From Japanese ワイフ (waifu), itself from English wife; popularized by 4chan. Doublet of wife. Believed to have first appeared in the anime Azumanga Daioh.” (Waifu, Wikipedia).
Headlines were made in Japan when a young man married a anime character and uses hologram to relate to her. In fact, the trend is growing in Japan and interest is growing in the USA as a new generation doesn’t want a conventional relationship.
What are we the Church to make of this? Does the Bible have any bearing on it? How should we respond as Christ followers? I shall endeavor to help answer these questions.
Firstly, the reason Waifuism is happening is that there is a major void. Not too long ago, a person could marry at sixteen years of age with parental consent, and wages made having a family possible. Then came the rise of scholasticism or academia, you had to have college education to warrant a living wage, which pressed the marriage age to mid twenties. Then inflation, student debt, and a decline in maturity with tweens being added to the human life cycle before teens, pushed the average marriage age to 33-37yrs. This creates a vacuum, a period in which people cannot express God given urges in holy matrimony, and relationships become avoided till one is financially viable and sound. Problem is that never happens for some. Starved for affection, and a healthy means to manage it, people turn to things, anything.
Another factor is what Paul spoke of in his first chapter to the Romans. Society at large has abandoned, forgotten, or is antagonistic towards the True Triune God; schools, cinema, streaming services, video games, literature and more all are full of predominately deviant behaviors and hatred of tradition values. As a result, people have exchanged the immortal God for baser things, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” (Romans 1:18-32).
Does the Bible forbid Waifus? Can you apply Jesus’words, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart,” (Matthew 5:28), when the woman or girl is a drawing? I think Christ’s words still apply, most anime girls and ladies are based on some real women, and God would not approve of a porn loophole because its cartoons not real people. For in Egypt and other cultures in Antiquity they had sculpture porn of creatures and lucivious tales; we still consider reading romance books and porn novels as the same as looking at images, so why not anime gals?
But what if no sensual aspects entail? However, highly unlikely, I am to believe that, still obsession over a digital creation and character is a sure sign people are giving themselves over to the virtual world. A waifu isn’t real, its fiction and once you embrace it as reality, what’s next? The line between real and unreal, real life and virtual life once crossed muddles perception of reality. This is not healthy, we are called to have a sound mind, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” 2 Timothy 1:7 KJV), “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ,” (1 Peter 1:13), and to guard our hearts, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). Waifus is in contravention of a sober mind, it is delusion. We as Christians are called to be healthy in body and mind. In addition we are called to not be of this world, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2). Our minds are to be transformed, not deformed in unreality like waifus.
Should we condemn people who have Waifus or are just crushing on fictional characters? No. Pray instead. Waifus have emerged in real vacuum of affection, and Covid-19 has exasperated that vacuum. Like anything there is God’s Grace, and we must be patient with those struggling. Digital stimuli is powerful, like a drug in some ways, and so we must be understanding of the loneliness that brought on waifus, how having an invisible friend turned into a wife or husband tied to anime images. At the same time we can’t encourage the behavior. Balance as always must be achieved between understanding a person’s reason they have delved into such territory while maintaining Biblical principles. May Christ guide us in this digital age, for this is likely only the tip of iceberg of what lies next around the corner. Amen.
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