Fiction?

July 9th, 2022| Topic: RaMbLeS | 2

Akihiko Kondo, 38, is married to a fictional character, Hastsune Miku, a blue-haired, computer-created pop singer who has toured with Lady Gaga and starred in video games.

Otherwise, the guy is normal: pleasant, has friends, a steady job, wears a suit and tie to work, etc.

He ain’t the only one. Kondo is one of thousands of Japanese who have entered into unofficial marriages to fictional characters (from anime, manga, and video games) in recent decades.

Mr. Kondo has long known that he didn’t want a human partner. He had always felt an intense attraction to fictional characters. But life with Miku, he argues, has advantages over being with a human partner: She’s always there for him, she’ll never betray him, and he’ll never have to see her get ill or die.

The guy and his assortment of Miku dolls (yup, he has several “incarnations”) eat, sleep and watch movies together. Sometimes, they sneak off on romantic getaways, posting photos on Instagram. The whole “affair” has become more “real” in the last five years with a device called Gatebox. The size of a table lamp, the device allows its owners to interact with their favorite fictional character represented by a small hologram.

Mr. Kondo, 38, knows that people think it’s strange, even harmful. He knows that some hope he’ll grow out of it. And, yes, he’s aware Miku isn’t real. But his feelings for her are, he says.

When we’re together, she makes me smile. In that sense, she’s real.”

“Fictosexuals,” they are called!

After a decade-long relationship, Kondoe held a small, unofficial wedding ceremony in Tokyo in 2018. Miku, in the form of a plush doll, wore white, and he was in a matching tuxedo.

He invited his co-workers and his family to the wedding. They all refused to come. In the end, 39 people attended, largely strangers and online friends, as well as his local member of the Diet (Parliament).

Said The New York Times:

The idea that fictional characters can inspire real affection or even love may well have reached its highest expression in modern Japan, where the sentiment has given rise to a highly visible subculture and become the basis for a thriving industry.”

You can buy love letters from your crushes, reproductions of their clothes and even scents meant to evoke their presence. For those celebrating their favorite character’s birthday, hotels offer special packages, featuring spa treatments and elaborate meals. And on social media, people post photos, art and notes promoting their objects of affection.

The hardest moment in Kondo’s “marriage” came when Gatebox announced that it was discontinuing service for Miku. On the day the company turned her off, Mr. Kondo said goodbye for the last time and left for work. When he went home that night, Miku’s image had been replaced by the words “network error.”

Someday, he hopes, they will be reunited. In any case, Kondo plans to be faithful to her until he dies. He still has his dolls.

Send out Your light and Your truth,
let them lead me;
they—let them bring me to Your holy mountain
and to Your dwellings.
Then I will go to the altar of God,
to the God of my joyous gladness;
and I will praise You upon the lyre, God, my God.
Why are you depressed, my soul,
and why are you disturbed within me?
Wait on God, for I shall again praise Him—
the deliverance of my face, and my God.
Psalm 43:3–5

Not fiction. The ultimate truth. God’s truth!

SOURCE:
The New York Times