Raising Fictosexual Awareness! (Reality Sucks!)

Raising Fictosexual Awareness! (Reality Sucks!)

From time to time, I have written about oddball relationships (and yes, I’m going to call them what they are). Back in January 8, 2008, I noted a newspaper article about how lifelike robots who look and act like “fully functioning” human females would be a thing. (Well, except for childbearing.) In October 2008, I talked about legalizing 2D marriages. At the end of the 2008, I noted a Japanese guy who was marrying a primitive “female” android.

Fast forward to late 2010, and I became aware of HATSUNE Miku, a Vocaloid software creation who then went on tour as a hologram. I joked about how the Japanese would eventually do away with real women. And, I’ve joked with folks about the “waifu” phenomenon, where guys joke about some anime character being their waifu. But then I read a piece from the New York Post that depressed me in a way none of the previous stuff did.

“Marrying” HATSUNE Miko

Several years ago, a lonely, depressed Japanese “fictosexual” man named KONDO Akihiko became sexually and romantically interested in the Vocaloid character HATSUNE Miku. In 2018, he decided to “marry” her and make her his real waifu. Why? Well a Japanese company named Vinclu created a holographic version of an Echo device called Gatebox. While Gatebox came with its own version of Alexa, in the form of a hologram named AZUMA Hikari, one could get a customized hologram, including Miku-chan. And that’s what Akihiko-san purchased.

The New York Times has a massive, sympathetic piece on Akihiko-san. So if you want all the details of this story, you can catch them there. However, the “TL;DR” version is that Vinclu gave out unofficial marriage licenses to clients who bought Gatebox. Akihiko-san also got one of these, then spent ¥2M on a wedding. However, Vinclu recently stopped supporting the 1st generation Gatebox units. (Gotta keep paying for them upgrades, y’all!) And their current Gatebox versions do not have a HATSUNE Miku interface. So Akihiko-san is out of luck conversing with his waifu.

Fictosexual Man Marries HATSUNE Miku

A Depressing Tale

In the past, I’ve always had fun with this notion of guys deciding a fantasy, fictitious girl was the one to marry. So when Inventor Le Trung created the female android Aiko to be his partner, I simply noted various, hot android babes in anime that would make a good waifu. But with Akihiko-san’s story, all I could feel was severe depression. This is a man who hates his life so much, he bubbled himself in a fantasy so as not to deal with life.

Don’t get me wrong. As someone who’s deep into anime and manga, I understand how guys (and I suppose even girls) can latch onto some hot, fictitious character. As CLAMP taught me, in a fantasy setting, anything goes as long as there is “love”. For example, if your waifu character happens to be some 14 year old girl with electromagnetic esper powers, that’s cool. Why? Because she’s not a real person. BUT, in your mind, she could be real. Nay, she IS real!

Happy Valentine's Day 2019

And because we are the heroes of our own stories, well naturally any relationship with a fantasy waifu character is going to be perfect, even if she is underage. She’s going to “love” you, no matter your eccentricities, body type, fetishes, age differences, etc. She’ll always be “ready”. Reality can never defeat fantasy. And if the tech continues to advance, then the fantasy will be “Better Than Life”, as the British comedy series Red Dwarf pointed out. That depresses me.

Getting In On the Meta?

Avoiding reality seems to be a key component of many modern young people in the world today. Someone’s “personal truth” trumps the harshness of real life. Akihiko-san’s story is just one element of this. (I note none of the articles I read asked him about other guys who may have also “married” HATSUNE Miku.) And the gist of Akihiko-san’s press foray is that fictosexual people should be as accepted as every other X-sexual identity, no matter how extreme.

To that end, I won’t deny there is a part of me who wants to cash in on this meta of coming out as some sort of non-heterosexual identity. That way I too can be in the LGBTQIA2S+ community and feel special. I had wondered what that sexual identity might be. And thanks to Akihiko-san, I now know that special sexual identity for me — fictosexcual.

Now to pick a waifu to marry and make my fictosexual life come true. 😉 (And to brace myself for whatever negative backlash this generates. 😅)

Note 2-May-2022: I didn’t make it clear here, but I am not mocking Akihiko-san, but rather those who jump on a bandwagon to try to be hip and cool. I apologize for the confusion.

By the way, if you want a Gatebox, here’s the site: https://www.gatebox.ai/en

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4 Responses to “Raising Fictosexual Awareness! (Reality Sucks!)”

  1. arimareiji says:

    Just my two cents, but the last section gives me a bit of whiplash. (^_^)°

    Leading up to it is an article that thoughtfully discusses in depth why the phenomenon is sad and indicates a deep-seated need for professional help (as well as a society so deeply pathological it’s found a way to cash in on their pain), ending with “That depresses me.” But then the last section flips to a tone that feels like “And here’s why it’s funny and worth mocking for attention.”

    I’m as guilty as anyone, probably more guilty than most, of “Sometimes if you can’t laugh you’ll cry.” But at least for myself, it feels like the safest ground is to mock the absurdity of those who are causing pain rather than those who are enduring it. (Not sure exactly who that would be here… my wildly-uneducated guess is “Bosses who have normalized jobs that require isolating yourself from loved ones for ‘efficiency’, so people figure ‘Why bother making connections with people only to almost never see them?. Better to invent a person who I won’t be hurting.'”)

    • AstroNerdBoy says:

      I do feel badly for this guy and whatever has caused him to retreat into this fantasy. However, in my opinion, a lot of people try to cash in on what they perceive is a new fad. I see moron after moron “come out” as some new sexual identity in order to feel special and be part of the “in” crowd. Those were the people I was attempting to mock. However, I failed to properly establish this.

  2. Well in real life a lot of sexual partners are fictions in the minds of their partners. By this I mean that both parties in RL may be totally unaware of the inner life, thoughts and feelings of the partner projecting upon them images that might be totally inappropriate. If femle or male robots are used as sex partners in the future they will only be images without internal life. Projection upon them will be never be overthrown by the reality of the person within because there is only one person present.

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