Single Japanese woman turns to crowd-funding in boyfriend hunt

Imagine being so desperate for a boyfriend that you turn to crowd funding to hunt for one? Yes, you open up yourself to the perils of the internet to provide that special one and even fund your date.

Tomoko Takebe is one such person.

This lonely single Japanese lady is 178cm tall, which apparently makes her a little imposing for some local men.

The determined 26-year-old lady turned to crowd funding to raise ¥260,000. In the end, her campaign successfully raised almost ¥550,000 from 72 backers!

She works as a model for a photo stock service so she’s certainly not ugly by any means. We’re not sure why she was having such trouble getting a guy to love her but perhaps the campaign was also conceived as a publicity stunt to make her famous (it succeeded to some extent, since it got press attention).

Her backers paid for the chance to attend her public omiai in summer 2016, which will also be broadcast online. The lowest contribution (¥500) paid for a question for her to ask the men or for the men to ask her.

By attending, you stand a chance of becoming her partner, since she will apparently choose from the participants.

An omiai is a kind of matchmaking session, where traditionally a go-between (e.g. a family friend or older work colleague) would bring two prospective singletons together to check each other out in a convenient meeting. Though associated with arranged marriages of days gone by, it still happens today, though less formally. In a sense, konkatsu (“marriage hunting”) services and dating sites are performing the same role.

Takebe also plans to have a private omiai so she and her prospective partners can get to know each other better away from the cameras.

There will also be a misogi, or ritual purification under a waterfall. Yes, Takebe is taking this seriously! Three patrons paid for the chance to accompany her.

The funding will cover the costs of having a professional omiai photo taken (to be given to the man’s parents), the omiai event itself and its private counterpart.