With big Disney eyes and flowing locks, the women that inhabit the anime world are downright adorable. It’s no wonder that some fans enjoy adopting cardboard cut-outs or body pillows of these ladies as their waifu—or idealized fictional wives.
Typically, anime fans hang these cut-outs on the wall or keep these pillows in their beds. Some especially devoted fans might take them out to dinner.
But Fabrice Requin has taken this obsession a step further. He’s taken his favorite female anime character, Holo from Spice and Wolf, on a three-month tour of Asia with him.
The French university student has been posing with this cute fox girl and documenting their shared adventures on his travel diary, Fateful Encounters. Requin said he and his friends came up with Project Holo while they were planning their school vacation.
“Together my friends and i joked around one night at my place and one said ‘hey lets bring her along!’ while looking at Holo who was in the corner of my room,” Requin wrote. “We all looked at each other and decided ye why not, just for the laughs haha we thought it would be something interesting.”
Since the cardboard cut-out folds in half, Requin was able to fit her in a large suitcase, as he told curious onlookers on the Sankaku Complex forums. Whenever he encounters a notable land mark, he unfolds Holo and the two pose for a picture—Requin smiling, Holo stiff a sardonic 2D grin. Their most recent landmark was the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto, Japan, on Jan. 24.
Wearing a formal dress and toting a bouquet of flowers, Holo appears to be dressed as a bride. However, Requin insists that he is not in a serious relationship with the cardboard cut-out.
“Also please she’s not my wife or whatever you guys think or honeymoon lol,” he wrote.
Requin wrote that the three-month tour only commenced on Jan. 1. That gives these lovebirds two more months to grow closer. We’ve contacted Requin to find out more.
Until we do, you can follow Requin and Holo’s adventures through Twitter and Facebook.