ASHER MOSES
November 26, 2009
Photos courtesy Sal9000, via BoingBoing.net."> The honeymoon in Guam and, inset, Nene Anegasaki. Photos courtesy Sal9000, via BoingBoing.net.
We may occasionally wish our spouses had an "off" switch but a Japanese man will have that luxury full-time after he married his virtual girlfriend in an official-looking ceremony over the weekend.
In a bizarre story reminiscent of the film Lars and the Real Girl, the man, known by his nickname SAL9000, fell in love with a fictional character from the Nintendo DS "love simulator" Love Plus.
Popular in Japan's geek subculture, the game invites players to pick a girlfriend and then challenges them to woo her by taking her out on "dates" and perform boyfriend duties such as saying "I love you" 100 times into the handheld games console.
Photos courtesy Sal9000, via BoingBoing.net."> The bride and groom in Tokyo. Photos courtesy Sal9000, via BoingBoing.net.
The most successful lotharios can even give their virtual love interest a kiss by literally kissing the DS's touch screen.
But that wasn't enough for SAL9000, who wedded Nene Anegasaki in an official-looking but not legally binding reception in Tokyo on Sunday.
Unusually, before the wedding, he took her on a "honeymoon" to Guam.
The reception included a priest, an MC, a DJ, speeches from friends and family, photo slideshows, wedding music and even a bouquet. The entire event was streamed live on a Japanese video-sharing site, of which SAL9000 is a prominent member.
"I'm so happy so many people were able to witness this," SAL9000 wrote in a letter to tech culture blog BoingBoing.net, calling it a milestone in his life.
"Some people have expressed doubts about my actions, but at the end of the day, this is really just about us as husband and wife. As long as the two of us can go on to create a happy household, I'm sure any misgivings about us will be resolved.
"The two of us hope to continue to let our love for each other grow as time goes on."
Lisa Katayama, a US freelance journalist who covers Japanese tech culture for publications including BoingBoing.net, The New York Times Magazine, Wired, and her own blog, TokyoMango.com, has been at the forefront of this virtual love craze.
She covered SAL9000's reception and in October interviewed young Japanese real-life couple Koh and Yurie, whose marriage took an unexpected turn when Koh took a liking to his Love Plus virtual girlfriend while on a business trip.
Yurie said she didn't have a problem with Koh's virtual indiscretions, saying "if he's just enjoying it as a game, that's fine with me".
And in an even stranger story, Katayama wrote a piece for The New York Times about Tokyo resident Nisan, 37, who fell in love with a stuffed pillowcase emblazoned with a depiction of a teenage video game character.
Nisan insists he has real feelings for the character and says he carries the pillowcase everywhere he goes.
"When I die, I want to be buried with her in my arms," he said.
But Katayama says people who dismiss these love affairs as the preserve of wackos are simply placing judgment too quickly on something they're not comfortable with.
She said people needed to stretch their imaginations to consider how far they would go in loving something that's not human.
"Here [in the US] it's OK to love your dog, it's OK to even love your car, but it's not OK to love an anime character," she said in a phone interview.
"We draw the line there in Western culture but in Japan some people still draw the line at cars and some people draw it a little further.
"I don't know if it's a good thing for society but we're always replacing things that humans used to do with technology, so it's not too far off to think that things like romance and sex can be replaced by technology."
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