Mother Refuse Attending Her Only Son's Wedding As He Gets Married To A Hologram - See Photos

A 35-year-old school administrator identified as Akihiko Kondo from Japan has ‘married’ the hologram of a virtual reality pop star named Hatsune Miku. For mother, it wasn’t something to celebrate so she refused an invitation to attend the ceremony apparently over its weirdness.

In fact, none of Kondo’s relatives attended his wedding to Miku but that didn’t stop him from spending two million yen ($17,600) on a formal ceremony at a Tokyo hall.

Miku, who is characterized as a 16-year-old girl with long turquoise pigtails and giant saucer-shaped eyes is a bit of a phenomenon in Japan.

She’s actually a computer program and has had chart-topping songs and sell-out concerts where she appears as a hologram.

But for Akihiko Kondo, the relationship is a little more personal.

‘I’m in love with the whole concept of Hatsune Miku but I got married to the Miku of my house,’ he said.

The Miku of his house is a personalized hologram of the singer that floats inside a $2,800 desktop capsule. A personalized hologram he loves so much that he paid $17,600 on a formal ceremony at a hall in Tokyo that was witnessed by 40 guests.

Mother Refuse Attending Her Only Son's Wedding As He Gets Married To A Hologram - See Photos 3

The hologram couldn’t make it to the ceremony so she was represented by a stuffed doll likeness.

“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’ve been thinking about her every day,” he told AFP a week after the wedding.

They’ve been living together since March. Kondo has been living with a moving, talking hologram of Miku that floats in a $2,800 desktop device.

He considers himself an ordinary married man—his holographic wife wakes him up each morning and sends him off to his job at the school.

In the evening, when he tells her by cell phone that he’s coming home, she turns on the lights. Later, she tells him when it’s 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.

Mother Refuse Attending Her Only Son's Wedding As He Gets Married To A Hologram - See Photos 4

Kondo’s marriage might not have any legal standing, but that doesn’t bother him. He even took his Miku doll to a jewelry shop to get the ring.

And Gatebox, the company that produces the hologram device featuring Miku, has issued a ‘marriage certificate”, which certifies that a human and a virtual character have wed ‘beyond dimensions’.

Kondo’s not alone either: he says Gatebox has issued more than 3,700 certificates for ‘cross-dimension’ marriages and some people have sent him supportive messages.

‘There must be some people who can’t come forward and say they want to hold a wedding. I want to give them a supportive push.’

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Even in a country obsessed with anime, Kondo’s wedding shocked many. But he wants to be recognized as a ‘sexual minority’ who can’t imagine dating a flesh-and-blood woman.

‘It’s simply not right, it’s as if you were trying to talk a gay man into dating a woman, or a lesbian into a relationship with a man.’
‘Diversity in society has been long called for,’ he added.
‘It won’t necessarily make you happy to be bound to the ‘template’ of happiness in which a man and woman marry and bear children.’
‘I believe we must consider all kinds of love and all kinds of happiness.’