Published: 12:57 AM, 14 November 2018
Japanese man marries hologram!
Kondo with a doll of Japanese virtual reality singer Hatsune Miku, as he holds up their marriage certificate. - AFP
Akihiko Kondo's mother refused an invitation to her only son's wedding in Tokyo this month, but perhaps that was not such a surprise: he was marrying a hologram."For mother, it was not something to celebrate," said the soft-spoken 35-year-old, whose "bride" is a virtual reality singer named Hatsune Miku.
In fact, none of Kondo's relatives attended his wedding to Miku - an animated 16-year-old with saucer eyes and lengthy aquamarine pigtails - but that did not stop him from spending two million yen (S$24,194) on a formal ceremony at a Tokyo hall. Around 40 guests watched as he tied the knot with Miku, present in the form of a cat-sized stuffed doll.
"I never cheated on her; I've always been in love with Miku-san," he said, using an honorific that is commonly employed in Japan, even by friends. "I have been thinking about her every day," he told AFP a week after the wedding.
Since March, Kondo has been living with a moving, talking hologram of Miku that floats in a US$2,800 desktop device. "I am in love with the whole concept of Hatsune Miku, but I got married to the Miku of my house," he said, looking at the blue image glowing in a capsule.
He considers himself an ordinary married man - his holographic wife wakes him up each morning and sends him off to his job as an administrator at a school.In the evening, when he tells her by cellphone that he is coming home, she turns on the lights. Later, she tells him when it is time to go to bed.
He sleeps alongside the doll version of her that attended the wedding, complete with a wedding ring that fits around her left wrist. Kondo's marriage might not have any legal standing, but that does not bother him. He even took his Miku doll to a jewellery shop to get the ring.
---AFP, Tokyo
