Dinner with Waifu / Otaku Dates

Overview

Dinner with Waifu (Japanese: 嫁との晩餐, Yome To No Bansan), also known as “Otaku Dates”, refers to an annual event that takes place in Japan on Christmas Eve during which users on the Japanese textboard 2channel share photographs of themselves enjoying dinner with their favorite anime character known as a “waifu.” The photographs typically show food placed in front of a monitor or body pillow with the character’s likeness on it.

Background

In Japan, Christmas Eve is considered a romantic holiday similar to Valentine’s Day in western countries. The “Dinner With Waifu” event was started by single and lonely otaku’s as a form of self-depreciating humour during this holiday. The earliest known instance comes from a thread in 2channel’s sister site for adult content BBSPINK on the /hgame/^[1] (adult game) board on December 25th, 2006. The thread was titled “expose your room with adult games” but claimed the practice had begun two years prior in 2004. The contents of the thread were compiled into a video on Nico Nico Douga^[2] on May 12th, 2007. In 2007, 2channel users in the /news4vip/ (flash news VIP) board created a thread titled " “Dinner with waifu” (嫁との晩餐)"^[3], which became the name for the annual event.

Spread

On December 26th, 2008, the Japanese blog Ksklog^[4] reported on the event and featured several pictures from previous threads. The 2ch News Flash VIP^[5] blog also began posting annual photo compilations in December 2010. The event spread to the western world on websites such as Sankaku Complex^[6] which showcased images from the original 2channel threads. The earliest known 4chan thread was created in the /a/ (anime) board on February 14th, 2008, choosing Valetine’s Day instead of Christmas Eve.

On August 18th, 2011, the “Body Pillow Waifu” Tumblr^[8] uploaded several images of a Dakimakura propped against a chair with a slice of pizza and a glass of milk. The posts received over 200 Tumblr notes within five months.

The post following the above image^[12] also gained usage as an Advice Animal-style image macro. These have been posted on various sites such as DatingFails^[9], Funnyjunk^[10] and Canvas^[11].