My Horse Prince

Someone in Japan made a dating game where you fall in love with a horse. A literal horse, except it has a human face grafted onto it—supposedly a cursed prince—and you’re supposed to find it attractive.

My Horse Prince is on iOS and Android. That means it actually got approved by app stores. The setup: you’re a shy person who wanders into a field, discovers this horse-creature with a prince’s face, and that’s the start of your romance. The game stays vague about what happens after that, which seems wise.

I found this the way you find most of the internet’s stranger artifacts—half-accidentally, then trapped looking because you can’t quite believe it exists. Japan has a peculiar talent for content that hovers between sincere and absurd, where you genuinely can’t tell if the creator is joking. My Horse Prince sits perfectly in that zone. A horse with a beautiful face looking at you like it means something.

What strikes me is the complete absence of irony. No winking. No acknowledgment that anything is weird. Just total commitment to the thing. You find a horse. He’s a prince. You fall in love. That’s the whole game. Maybe that’s the most honest creative move—know exactly what you’re making and do it anyway, zero apologies.

I’m not playing it. But I respect it. And I’m grateful they kept the anatomical horse-part accurate. Make it human and you’ve crossed from absurd into genuinely disturbing.