Man marries video game girlfriend

Oh, Japan. Land of techno toilets, seven-patty burgers, and where a man can marry his video game girlfriend. Mazel tov to the groom and virtual bride!

Last week, a Japanese man, who goes by the name SAL9000, tied the knot with Nene Anegasaki, a character from the digital dating simulator Love Plus. The two had flirted for some time through SAL's Nintendo DS. Clearly crazy for each other, the pair got hitched in a public ceremony in Tokyo on Sunday and streamed the whole thing over the Internet on the YouTube-like video website Nico Nico Douga. Check out a clip below.

BoingBoing reports that the event included a DJ, MC, priest, and speeches from the best man and from a friend of Ms. Anegaskai's (i.e. another character from the video game). The article quotes a letter from SAL saying that "there were over 3,000 connections and 7,000 comments made online, and the people who showed up in person at the ceremony also offered their congratulations. It was great."

The happy couple then honeymooned in Guam. They only needed one plane ticket, since SAL simply brought the Nintendo hand-held system with him. We're guessing he also carried her over the threshold – good thing she weighs only 0.6 pounds.

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While everything looked very serious, there was an ironic wink throughout the wedding – a puckish acknowledgment missing from other tales of virtual love taken to extremes. The same Boing Boing reporter recently wrote a piece for The New York Times documenting a man's attachment to a different video game character:

Now, after three years together, they are virtually inseparable. “I’ve experienced so many amazing things because of her,” Nisan told me, rubbing Nemutan’s leg warmly. “She has really changed my life.”

Nemutan doesn’t really have a leg. She’s a stuffed pillowcase — a 2-D depiction of a character, Nemu, from an X-rated version of a PC video game called Da Capo, printed on synthetic fabric.

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