The other day I read Train Man: The Novel, which left me with a smile and a manly tear at the end. I know you're wondering why I'm talking about this here, as it's not a video game. Well, honestly, more people need to read books, so that's why I'm talking about this. Books are good for you!

This story might be a true story, or it might be a novel. The events that transpire have never officially been proven, in so much as anything said on internet forums can be proven. This is the story of a young otaku in Japan who stands up to a drunk old man bothering women on a train in Japan, and the love that blooms because of that incident.

The story is told through a series of postings to the Japanese forum 2chan.net. The young man starts by explaining the train incident, and then he receives a present from one of the girls on the train, a set of expensive tea cups. He eventually, with the help of other otaku on the forum, calls the young woman and it snowballs from there into a story of personal transformation and finding love.

I know, it doesn't sound all that hard, calling a girl. You need to remember that in Japan an "otaku" is pretty much a social shut-in that works and returns home to obsess over their chosen geekery, and post anonymously to forums like 2chan. 99% of them have never even spoken to a girl in any meaningful way, let alone called one on the phone.

You really root for Train Man to win this girl over. He agonizes over every thing, what to wear, what to say, where to go, when to tell her he likes her, and so on. He obtains massive support from the people on the forum he posts to, some staying up all night on the nights he goes out just to see what happens. By the end of the novel I was furiously reading, just like all those forum posters were, to see what happened next. The ending was so satisfying that I had a smile a mile wide and a few masculine tears in my eyes.

The book is an international best seller, and has been made into a movie and two different manga series. It's a really touching story, and I hope you give it a try!