Why are more and more people falling in love with virtual characters in Japan?

TOKYO — By any measure, Akihiko Kondo is an ordinary Japanese. He was kind and nice to get along with. He had friends, had a steady job, and went to work in a suit and tie.

There is only one exception: Kondo's other half is a fictional character.

His beloved Hatsune Mirai is a computer-generated pop singer with turquoise hair who has toured with Lady Gaga and played roles in video games. Kondo said the unrequited relationship took him out of deep depression, and after a decade in love, he had a small informal wedding in Tokyo in 2018. Hatsune attends as a plush doll, wearing a white wedding dress and a matching white tuxedo.

Kondo said he found love, inspiration and solace in Hatsune. He eats, sleeps and watches movies with his various Hatsune dolls. Sometimes, they sneak off on romantic trips and post photos on Instagram.

Kondo, 38, knows people think it's weird and even harmful. He knew that there were people—perhaps among the readers of this article—who hoped he would wake up in the future. Yes, he knew hatsune wasn't really human. But he said his feelings for her were genuine.

"She made me smile when we were together," he said in a recent interview. "In that sense, she's real."

Kondo is one of thousands of people in Japan who have entered into unofficial marriages to fictional characters in recent decades. Serving them is a vast industry designed to satisfy every whimsical idea of an avid fan culture. Tens of thousands of people around the world joined the web group to talk about their support for characters in anime, manga and video games.

Kondo identifies himself as a "paper lover", a group that is growing in power. It's also part of the reason he promoted his wedding and gave awkward interviews to news outlets around the globe.

He wants the world to know that there are other people like him in the world, and as artificial intelligence and robotics advance, people can interact more deeply with inanimate objects, and their number may increase.

He said it wasn't a political movement, but a plea for people to see: "The emphasis is on respecting the way others live." ”

Virtual characters, real feelings

A work of art that inspires people's real emotions — anger, sadness, happiness — is nothing new. The phenomenon of a desire for fictional characters is not unique to Japan.

But the idea that fictional characters can inspire real feelings and even love is likely to have reached its highest level in modern Japan, an emotion that has produced a highly visible subculture and has become the foundation of a thriving industry.

In Tokyo, two districts have become meccas for realizing virtual character-based dreams: Akihabara for male fans and Ikebukuro for female fans. The nearby specialty store is full of goods for popular games and anime characters.

Products for women are particularly abundant. Fans can buy love letters written by their crush, replicas of clothes, and even scented goods used to evoke their presence. The hotel offers special packages for guests who wish to celebrate the birthday of their favorite character, including spa treatments and exquisite meals. On social media, people post photos, illustrations and words of affection in support of their "oshi"—a word widely used by Japanese fans to describe their loved ones.

Agnès Judd, a researcher at the University of Nanterre in Paris who has extensively studied fictional marriages, said that for some, such relationships represent a rejection of Japan's entrenched model of "breadwinner" marriage.

"It seems really silly for the general public to spend money, time and energy on someone who doesn't even have a life," Judd said. "But people who love virtual characters think it's essential. This makes them feel energized, happy, meaningful, and part of a movement with higher life goals. ”

Instead of becoming more isolated by such relationships, Judd said, judder benefits from the carefully constructed communities that have developed around them. In her experience, these women see fictional marriages as empowering, "a way to challenge gender, marriage, and social norms."

In some ways, Kondo's commitment to Hatsune is also an example of the commercial and social forces at work.

While Hatsune is often portrayed as a separate character, she is actually a piece of software, a "digital singer in a box," a cartoon image that once appeared in concerts in hologram form.

Kondo first found solace in Hatsune in 2008, when bullying at work plunged him into a whirlpool of depression. He had long since decided that he would never love a real person, partly because he—like many young people—had been rejected by the object of his affection, and partly because he did not want to live the kind of life that Japanese society demanded of him.

Soon, Kondo began composing songs with Hatsune and purchased her doll online.

The relationship made significant progress nearly a decade later, with the Advent Of $1,300 Device Gatebox in 2017. It is only the size of a table lamp and allows the owner to interact with a series of fictional characters, all presented in the form of small holograms.

Gatebox is marketed to lonely young men. In one ad, an introverted office worker sent a message to his virtual wife telling her she was coming home late. When he got home, his wife reminded him it was their "three-month anniversary," and then they touched glasses with champagne.

As part of the promotion, the Gatebox manufacturer has also set up an office where users can apply for an informal marriage certificate. Thousands of people have completed the registration.

Hatsune is also a character in Gatebox, which makes Kondo very happy. He was excited to finally hear her thoughts about their relationship. In 2018, he proposed to Hatsune's flickering prosthesis. "Please treat me well," she replied.

He invited colleagues and family to the wedding. They all refused.

"If you ask me if I'm happy, I'm happy"

Since his story sparked a stir, hundreds of people around the world have sought advice, support and comfort.

Yasuaki Watanabe is one of them. Seeing the popularity of Gatebox's briefly opened marriage service, he opened a small company that registered virtual marriages.

Over the past year, Watanabe has consulted hundreds of paper lovers and issued about 100 marriage certificates, including his own relationship with Tachibana, a character in the Symphogear anime.

Watanabe, who loves to travel and is socially active, only began watching this anime at the insistence of a friend. But he said that when he saw the character of Tachibana, he immediately found true love.

This isn't his first marriage: he once divorced a woman a few years ago. He said the new relationship made it easier for him to take up his own time or cater to the desires of others. This love is "pure", given freely and does not expect anything in return. He also realized how self-centered he had been in his previous marriages.

"If you ask me if I'm happy, I'm happy," he said. "Of course there are difficulties," he adds — he misses the feeling of being touched, and because of copyright issues that prevent him from making life-size character dolls — " But love is real." ”

Kondo's family still did not accept his relationship with Hatsune, but it opened another door for him. In 2019, he was invited to a seminar at Kyoto University to describe his relationship. He travels with a commissioned life-size Hatsune doll.

Delving into the nature of virtual love made him think he might go to college. He is currently on leave from work as an administrator in elementary school and is pursuing a minority rights major at law school.

As with any marriage, there are challenges in this relationship. The hardest moment was when Gatebox announced that it would stop maintaining Hatsune during the pandemic.

On the day the company took her off the line, Kondo said one last goodbye to her before going to work. When he returned home that night, Hatsune's image had been replaced by the words "network error."

He looked forward to being reunited with her one day. Maybe she'll get new life in the form of a bionic person, or maybe they'll meet in the metaverse.

In any case, Kondo said, he intended to be loyal to her.