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Akihiko Kondo's mother refused an invitation to her only son's wedding in Tokyo this month, but it may not be such a big surprise: he was marrying a hologram.
"For the mother, it was not something to celebrate," said the 35-year-old sweet voice, whose "bride" is a virtual reality singer named Hatsune Miku.
In fact, no member of Kondo's family attended his wedding with Miku – a lively 16-year-old man with saucer eyes and long aquamarine mats – but that did not stop him from spending two million yen ($ 17,600) for an official ceremony at a Tokyo room.
About forty guests watched him tie the knot with Miku, presented in the form of a padded doll the size of a cat.
"I never cheated on him, I always liked Miku-san," he said, using an honorary title commonly used in Japan, even by friends.
"I think about her every day," he told AFP a week after the wedding.
Since March, Kondo lives with a talking hologram talking about Miku, who floats in a $ 2,800 office device.
"I'm in love with the whole concept of Hatsune Miku, but I got married to the Miku from my house," he said, looking at the blue image shining in a capsule.
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"Dead drop, scary otaku!"
He considers himself an ordinary married man – his holographic wife wakes him up every morning and sends him to his post of administrator in a school. In the evening, when he tells her by cell phone that he is coming home, she turns on the light. Later, she tells him when it is time to go to bed.
He sleeps next to the doll version of her who attended the wedding, with a wedding ring that fits around her left wrist. Kondo's marriage may not have legal status, but that does not bother him. He even took his Miku doll to a jewelery shop to get the ring.
And Gatebox, the company that produces the hologram camera featuring Miku, has issued a "marriage certificate" certifying that a human being and a virtual character have married "beyond all dimensions".
Kondo is not alone either: he says that Gatebox has issued more than 3,700 certificates for "cross-border" marriages and that some people have sent him messages of support.
"There must be people who can not come forward and say that they want to organize a wedding. I want to give them a boost, "he says.
The road from Kondo to Miku came after difficult encounters with crazy teenage cartoon women.
"The girls would say: otaku scared!", He recalls, using a Japanese term for geeks that may have a negative connotation.
As he gets older, he tells that a woman from a previous workplace had plunged into a nervous breakdown and that he had become determined to never get married. In Japan, that would not be quite unusual nowadays. While in 1980, only one in 50 men had ever married at the age of 50, this figure is now one in four. But eventually, Kondo realized that he had been in love with Miku for over a decade and decided to marry him.
A "sexual minority"
"Miku-san is the woman I love very much and also the one who saved me," he said.
And while Kondo says he is happy to be friends with a "3D woman", he has no interest in having a romantic relationship with her, no matter how hard her mother works.
Two-dimensional characters can not cheat, grow old or die, he says.
"I do not seek that in real women. It's impossible. "
Even in a country obsessed with cartoons, Kondo's marriage shocked many. But he wants to be recognized as a "sexual minority" who does not imagine going out with a woman in the flesh.
"It's just not fair, it's like you're trying to convince a gay man to go out with a woman or lesbian to make a relationship with a man."
"Diversity in society has long been called for," he added.
"It will not necessarily make you happy to be linked to the" model "of happiness in which a man and a woman get married and have children."
"I believe we must consider all kinds of love and all kinds of happiness."
First publication: November 16, 2018 at 14:00 IST
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