'Geeks' Get Cheap Tix to Japanese Flick

TOKYO - Declaring you're a "geek" might get you strange looks in some places. But a Japanese movie theater is offering outspoken nerds something positive: a discount.

A small movie theater outside Tokyo is offering cheaper tickets to so-called geeks for a summer romance movie about a nerdy guy who falls in love.

All that's needed to get the discount is to ask for "one ticket for a geek" at the booth for the Japanese movie "Train Man."

"Customers are getting a kick out of saying it," said Koji Nitta, sales chief the Fujisawa Chuo theater, south of Tokyo. "There are only a few who look like typical geeks, though."

The movie, "Densha Otoko" in Japanese, takes so-called geeks into a genre they're not usually associated with: romantic love. The 22-year-old hero turns to a favorite geek refuge in search of girlfriend advice - the Internet.

Offering a discount seems to be widening the types of people eligible to be otaku, the Japanese term for geeks: Nitta said about 70 percent of the theater's customers now claim to be geeks.

Tue Aug 30, 8:06 AM ET