WOTAKOI 💜

Wotakoi is near and dear to my heart. It was somewhere around the start of the end of 2022, must have been early December. I got so sick that I’ll take calling me bedridden as a form of flattery. The mood was so special that I even slept in my living room for the entire week, moving all my bedsheets and bedroom-bound belongings over to my big comfy soft inviting wide couch.

The only form of entertainment I was feeling attracted to was the collection of some manga books of “Wotakoi: Love Is Hard For Otaku.” No clue what it meant when I eyed them at Barnes & Noble—I like it this way. The more of a blind man I am going in to something—the more excited I get. All the meta stuff around the work is fine only after you’ve enjoyed the original body of work.

There is a certain inexplicable charm of Wotakoi; seeing all the nerdy adults living day to day in their routine corporate life and making something of theirs in the little free time between work and sleep. Working in a similar corporate environment and liking nerdy things, I can relate to it much better than to a coming of age of 16-17 year olds. The latter is my food too; I’m not going to bite the hand that feeds me. But there is something about an adult manga. (heh)

Surprisingly enough, even though the setting of the story is quite mundane, it offers a great way to escape that mundaneness itself; reframe it in a more uplifting vision—offering some sort of a “escapist’s reality, re-imagined.” Somehow, even being deathly ill (not really deathly), and now, more than a year later—modus operandi of our daily modern lives became just a little bit more Wotakoi.

This was a quick word I wanted to put out and at the same time without touching the actual story or going over what happens. Go read it. Or watch it! There is an anime adaptation of the series. I haven’t seen it myself, as the manga came to me in a vulnerable part and found its way to my heart. All the pictures on this page are from Wotakoi: Love Is Hard for Otaku Official Art Works—if you liked Wotakoi or anything else, really—getting an artbook is another way of supporting the author and appreciate all the work that has gone into creating your special something.

A little easter egg, if I may—I created my own font based on Wotakoi’s covers (see the title of this page). Apparently, there is no font like it as it was created an exclusive graphic of the series’ book illustrations. I traced just the letters needed to spell the title, so if you’re interested, there is an otf and woff2 available.