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.

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!

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