For young Japanese seeking romance, beauty is in the eye of the dating app

Japanese millennials are apathetic about romance, and everyone knows it. But according to Hirokazu Nakamura, chief product officer and chief marketing officer of Tokyo-based startup Eureka Inc., young people are not losing interest in love itself. It is just too much hassle for young people," Nakamura said at a business conference this month organized by Eureka, the developer of Japan's popular dating app Pairs. "They have been placed in a situation where finding love is too difficult. They just have too many things that they want to prioritize." While the surge in people remaining single may seem unstoppable, online dating apps have become increasingly popular among young Japanese, who are more inclined to pursue better kosupa (cost-performance) in finding love. Eureka's Pairs is just one of many dating apps aimed at making the process of finding a soulmate as easy as tapping and swiping on a smartphone screen. When you open Pairs, a list of photos and profiles of other registered members appears on the screen. A user who finds someone attractive can send that person a "like." If it is accepted, the pair become a "match" and start an online conversation. Registration is free but male participants must pay a monthly fee of ¥3,480 if they want to exchange unlimited messages. Between its launch in 2012 and this month, the app has been accessed by more than 7 million registered users, and some 4,000 every month enter a relationship, according to the company. About 80 percent of users are in their 20s to 30s. Taishi and Ayumi Kobayashi, both 29, are one such couple. They married after becoming a match in Pairs in July 2015. Although skeptical about online dating at first, Taishi, who works in the financial sector, said that meeting someone via software turned out to be easy and effective as it increases the chance of finding someone "attractive." "Even if you want to have a relationship with people around you, like in the same school or in the same circle, it's always difficult to find someone who shares the same values," he said. With the app, "I could meet someone who I had absolutely no chance of meeting before." Ayumi also said match-making apps fit well with young people's lifestyles, as it makes finding love "efficient." "I often used the app during my free time.