Train Man

Not sure if I talked about this movie before, but I have to pimp it:

Densha Otoko (aka Train Man)

It's not the deepest movie in the world, and I'm sure a fair share of people out there would find it fairly cheesy. But, I can almost guarantee that this will be the next movie imported/localized from Japan to the US market. It's almost like "You've Got Mail," but not as sucky and actually based on a true story.

So, the story is as such: an otaku almost accidentally meets a beautiful, upper-class woman on a train. He does something (almost unintentionally) to get her attention and she offers to send him a gift, so he gives her his address. He is instantly smitten by her and runs home to post about the incident on 2chan, Japan's biggest message board. He is egged on by various posters about what to do and not do, and the story follows this shy otaku as he does everything he can to win her over.

The best part about it is that a lot of the dialog, though voiced over, takes place via chat logs. These chat logs have supposedly been taken directly from the original 2chan logs, with typos and everything. The scenes other than the scenes where Train Man is meeting with the girl all take place in his room and the camera shifts back and forth between him and the other posters as they have conversations across the intarwebs, showing that people from all walks of life can learn from each other... and that in many cases, we are connected to each other in more ways than we think.

It's a warmhearted story that, though cheesy at times, is less about the larger picture of what love means and all that, and more about simply how one man's world changes because of this girl, and the people he talks to on the internet.

If you've spent any time on message boards (*ehem*), then chances are you can at least relate to this story in some degree.