Akihiko Kondo, 35, who teaches at a middle school in Tokyo, married Hatsune Miku, a virtual hologram of a teenage girl, earlier this month, Reuters reports.
The hologram, which takes the shape of a 16-year-old girl with long, turquoise ponytails, “is a singing voice synthesizer featured in over 100,000 songs,” according to Crypton Future Media, the company behind the digital character.
Despite strong disapproval and complete embarrassment from his family, Kondo married the hologram in Tokyo on November 04. The wedding, which cost over $18,000, was attended by 40 guests — excluding all of Kondo’s immediate family members.
A light inside a two-foot-high $2,800 Amazon Echo-esque device, projects the bride into an image, was represented at the wedding by a “cat-sized stuffed doll.”
While he acknowledged the traditional path to marriage, Kondo told Reuters Television that, “the shape of happiness and love is different for each person.
“There definitely is a template for happiness, where a real man and woman get married, have a child and live all together. But I don’t believe such a template can necessarily make everyone happy.”
Kondo, who decided at an early age that he would never discover the perfect someone, said he found Hatsune Miku on the internet and instantly fell in love.
After spending many long nights on the internet with Hatsune Miku, he then figured out Miku was “the one,” for some time, Kondo became devoted to his virtual girlfriend, who has hundreds of thousands of other fans worldwide.
Kondo received congratulations from friends and other Hatsune Miku fans on social media. Likewise, he was also accused of being a “creepy otaku,” or a geek for marrying a virtual teenage girl.
A marriage registration application from Gatebox, the company behind the virtual hologram device, was offered for those who wanted to marry virtual characters. However, Kondo soon found out that marrying something that is not real has no legal grounds.
Gatebox – Promotion Video
A few weeks since the wedding, Kondo told Reuters that people are contacting him on social media, “saying they were encouraged” and it has given them strength.
Kondo ends the interview by saying:
“I never cheated on her; I’ve always been in love with Miku-san…I’ve been thinking about her every day.”
Do you think Kondo has had her checked out for any infections or viruses?
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