This Man Married a Fictional Character. He’d Like You to Hear Him Out.
By Ben Dooley and Hisako Ueno NY Times
Akihiko Kondo and
thousands of others are in devoted fictional relationships, served by a vast
industry aimed at satisfying the desires of a fervent fan culture.
TOKYO — In almost every way, Akihiko Kondo is an ordinary Japanese man. He’s pleasant and easy to talk to. He has friends and a steady job and wears a suit and tie to work.
There’s just one
exception: Mr. Kondo is married to a fictional character.
His beloved,
Hatsune Miku, is a turquoise-haired, computer-synthesized pop singer who has
toured with Lady Gaga and starred in video games. After a decade-long
relationship, one that Mr. Kondo says pulled him out of a deep depression, he
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.
In Miku, Mr.
Kondo has found love, inspiration and solace, he says. He and his assortment of
Miku dolls eat, sleep and watch movies together. Sometimes, they sneak off on
romantic getaways, posting photos on Instagram.
Mr. Kondo, 38,
knows that people think it’s strange, even harmful. He knows that some —
possibly those reading this article — hope he’ll grow out of it. And, yes, he
knows that Miku isn’t real. But his feelings for her are, he says.
“When we’re together, she makes me smile,” he said in a recent interview. “In that sense, she’s real.”
A photo from a
wedding ceremony Mr. Kondo held in 2018.Credit...Noriko Hayashi for The New
York Times
Mr. Kondo said he
planned to be faithful to Miku until he died.Credit...Noriko Hayashi for The
New York Times
Mr. Kondo is one
of thousands of people in Japan who have entered into unofficial marriages with
fictional characters in recent decades, served by a vast industry aimed at
satisfying the every whim of a fervent fan culture. Tens of thousands more
around the globe have joined online groups where they discuss their commitment
to characters from anime, manga and video games.
For some, the
relationships are just for a laugh. Mr. Kondo, however, has long known that he
didn’t want a human partner. Partly, it was because he rejected the rigid
expectations of Japanese family life. But mostly, it was because he had always
felt an intense — and, even to himself, inexplicable — attraction to fictional
characters.
Accepting his
feelings was hard at first. 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.
Mr. Kondo sees himself as part of a growing movement of people who identify as “fictosexuals.” That’s partly what has motivated him to publicize his wedding and to sit for awkward interviews with news media around the globe.
He wants the
world to know that people like him are out there and, with advances in
artificial intelligence and robotics allowing for more profound interactions
with the inanimate, that their numbers are likely to increase.
It’s not a political movement, he said, but a plea to be seen: “It’s about respecting other people’s lifestyles.”
Pretend people,
true feelings
It’s not unusual
for a work of art to provoke real emotions — anger, sorrow, joy — and the
phenomenon of desiring the fictional is not unique to Japan.
But 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.
“When we’re together, she makes me smile,” Mr. Kondo said in a recent interview. “In that sense, she’s real .”Credit...Noriko Hayashi for The New York Times
The Japanese word
for the feelings those characters inspire is “moe,” a term that has become
shorthand for just about anything that is viscerally adorable.
Business seminars have talked about tapping the moe market, and the government has promoted the notion — in relation to cartoons — as an important cultural export. The word and other specialized terms have resonated beyond Japan, with fictosexuals abroad often adopting them to articulate their own experience of love.
While
unofficially marrying fictional characters remains rare, the economic
juggernaut that has grown around Japanese fan culture since the late 1970s has
made it possible for many more people to live out elaborate fantasies with
their favorite characters.
“You have the
comics, the cartoons, the games kind of building up a sort of infrastructure
where characters become more important to people,” said Patrick Galbraith, an
associate professor in the School of International Communication at Senshu
University in Tokyo who has written extensively about the subject.
In Tokyo, two
districts have become meccas for fulfilling character-based dreams: Akihabara
(for men) and Ikebukuro (for women). Specialty shops in the neighborhoods are
packed with merchandise for characters from popular games and anime.
The products for
women are especially extensive. Fans can buy love letters from their crushes,
reproductions of their clothes and even scents meant to evoke their presence.
Hotels offer special packages, featuring spa treatments and elaborate meals,
for people celebrating their favorite character’s birthday. And on social
media, people post photos, art and mash notes promoting their “oshi” — a term
widely used by Japanese fans to describe the objects of their affection.
For some, the relationships represent a rejection of the entrenched “breadwinner-housewife” model of marriage in Japan, said Agnès Giard, a researcher at the University of Paris Nanterre who has extensively studied fictional marriages.
“To the general public, it seems indeed foolish to spend money, time and energy on someone who is not even alive,” Dr. Giard said. “But for character lovers, this practice is seen as essential. It makes them feel alive, happy, useful and part of a movement with higher goals in life.”
Kina Horikawa
with Kunihiro Horikawa, a character from the mobile game Touken Ranbu, at a
cafe in Tokyo. She said she did not want to show her face because other fans of
Kunihiro Horikawa might harrass her on social media.Credit...Noriko Hayashi for
The New York Times
Rather than
becoming more isolated as a result of their relationships, women benefit from
the elaborate communities that develop around them, Dr. Giard said. In her
experience, women see the fictional marriages as empowering, “a way to
challenge gender, matrimonial and social norms.”
In some respects,
Mr. Kondo’s commitment to Miku, too, is an example of commercial and social
forces at work.
Although Miku is
often portrayed as a single character, she’s actually a piece of software, a
digital “singer in a box” that comes paired with a cartoon avatar that has
appeared in concert in hologram form.
Mr. Kondo first
found comfort in Miku in 2008, after bullying at his job sent him into a spiral
of depression. He had decided long ago that he would never love a real person,
partly because, like many young people, he had been rejected by a series of
crushes, and partly because he didn’t want the life that Japanese society
demanded of him.
Soon, Mr. Kondo
began making songs with Miku and purchased a stuffed doll of the character
online.
A major
breakthrough in the relationship came nearly a decade later, with the
introduction in 2017 of a $1,300 machine called Gatebox. The size of a table
lamp, the device allowed its owners to interact with one of a variety of
fictional characters represented by a small hologram.
Gatebox was
marketed to lonely young men. In one ad, a shy office worker sends a note
to his virtual wife letting her know he’ll be late. Upon his arrival, she
reminds him that it’s their “three-month anniversary,” and they share a
Champagne toast.
As part of its promotional campaign, Gatebox’s maker set up an office where users could apply for unofficial marriage certificates. Thousands of people registered.
Mr. Kondo was
delighted that Miku was among the Gatebox characters and excited to at last
hear her thoughts on their relationship. In 2018, he proposed to Miku’s
flickering avatar. “Please treat me well,” she replied.
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. His local member of
Parliament was there, and a woman he had never met before helped him with the
arrangements.
Some Japanese
commentators denounced Mr. Kondo as weird. Others pleaded for sympathy. One man
contended that the union was a violation of Japan’s Constitution, which states
that marriage shall be allowed only with the consent of both sexes. In
response, Mr. Kondo posted a video of his proposal.
‘If you ask me if
I’m happy, I’m happy’
Yasuaki Watanabe
with a body pillow of Hibiki Tachibana, a character from an anime
series.Credit...Noriko Hayashi for The New York Times
In the years
since his story went viral, hundreds of people from around the world have
turned to Mr. Kondo for advice, support and reassurance.
Among them was
Yasuaki Watanabe, who opened a small business registering fictional marriages
after seeing the popularity of Gatebox’s short-lived certificate service.
Over the last year, Mr. Watanabe has counseled hundreds of fictosexuals and issued around 100 marriage certificates, including one for himself and Hibiki Tachibana, a character from the anime series “Symphogear.”
Mr. Watanabe, who
likes to travel and has an active social life, began watching the show only at
a friend’s insistence. But when he saw Hibiki, it was true love, he said.
It was not his
first marriage: He had divorced a woman several years earlier. His new
relationship was easier, he said, with no demands on his time and no need to
cater to someone else’s desires. The love was “pure,” given freely and with no
expectation of anything in return. It made him realize how self-centered he had
been in the earlier marriage.
“If you ask me if
I’m happy, I’m happy,” he said. “Of course, there are tough parts,” he added —
he misses being touched, and then there is the problem of copyright, which has
prevented him from making a life-size doll of the character — “but the love is
real.”
“I’m not hiding
it from anyone,” said Ms. Horikawa.Credit...Noriko Hayashi for The New York
Times
Kina Horikawa, a
23-year-old woman with a chirpy, outgoing personality and a goth-punk
aesthetic, moved in with her parents during the pandemic, freeing up cash from
her job at a call center to spend on Kunihiro Horikawa, a character from the
mobile game Touken Ranbu. She had a real boyfriend, but broke up with him
because he became jealous.
Her fictional
husband is the teenage personification of a 400-year-old wakizashi, or Japanese
short sword, and he joins the family for dinner most nights in the form of a
tiny acrylic portrait perched next to her rice bowl. The couple double dates
with friends who have their own fictional beaus, going out to high teas and
posting photos on Instagram.
“I’m not hiding it from anyone,” said Ms. Horikawa, who uses her fictional husband’s last name unofficially.
While Mr. Kondo’s
relationship with Miku is still not accepted by his family, it has opened other
doors for him. In 2019, he was invited to join a symposium at Kyoto University
to speak about his relationship. He traveled there with a life-size doll of
Miku he had commissioned.
Engaging in deep
conversation about the nature of fictional relationships made him think he
might like to go to college. He’s now studying minority rights in law school
while on leave from his job as an administrator at an elementary school.
As with any
marriage, there have been challenges. The hardest moment came during the
pandemic, 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. Maybe she’ll take on new life as an android, or
they will meet in the metaverse.
Either way, Mr.
Kondo said, he plans to be faithful to her until he dies.
Ben Dooley
reports on Japan’s business and economy, with a special interest in social
issues and the intersections between business and
politics. @benjamindooley
Hisako Ueno has
been reporting on Japanese politics, business, gender, labor and culture for
The Times since 2012. She previously worked for the Tokyo bureau of The Los
Angeles Times from 1999 to 2009. @hudidi1
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