Contributed by: Fatima-tuz-Zahra

An unusual marriage took place in few days ago, where the groom named Sal9000 married a woman Nene Anegasaki. While Sal is a human, Nene is a video game character. The marriage took place in Tokyo. She lives in a popular video game Nintendo DS Love Plus. Nene is the girlfriend of Sal in the video game. The groom decided to take his virtual relationship to another direction by marrying his girlfriend in the real world. The man says he was badly in love with the character of Nene Anegasaki, the bride, and wanted to marry her. So, he got married with his virtual girlfriend. This is the first ever marriage between a man and a video game character. He says he is very happy with his new marriage and loves his wife Nene.

Love Plus is a dating simulation game where the players can go to wine and dine life matches. There are three girls in the game. The Player is allowed to take them out and do various things to earn their love. This happens just like in real world. The player can buy virtual flowers with credit, can go out with the girl of his choice, can walk with the girl in moon nights or can even go to disco with his partner.

This guy has not just presented a new concept of virtual marriage, but the marriage actually took place in Tokyo. The bride and groom were properly dressed for the marriage day. There was DJ to play music. Many guests were invited from real and virtual world. Many of Nene’s friends also attended the ceremony. Sal9000 got his video game to church and a real religious priest tied the knot of their love. When all the rituals finished, they finally became husband and wife. The crowd, both real and virtual went wild with the excitement. The best man and a friend from the Anegasaki, another video game character, also delivered their speeches.

Later both bride and groom also went on their honeymoon in Guam. He literally took his wife, the video game, with him and took her pictures. He also telecasted some videos of honeymoon. He is very sensitive about his wife, the 2D lady, and likes to spend money on her. He has already upgraded her to latest hardware. It is surprising that some churches allow such type of marriages !

The whole ceremony could be seen live on the video sharing site of Japan named Nico Nico Douga, a site where a lot of strange thing already happen. Wow! What a ceremony and what kind of people would be watching it? Obviously nobody is taking it seriously. However, it is a sensible decision as the man is not accountable to his wife for every of his doing.

The new possible danger of ‘virtual versus real world’ could be substituting real world relationships with virtual ones. The concept of virtual relationships is emerging rapidly. People have virtual pets, babies, families, homes, girlfriends and now even marriages. All such activities provide potential ground for testing virtual relationships. It is hard to say why all this is happening. Maybe it is just fun part of life or people have a sense of insecurity with human beings and want to give a try to a virtual relationship. We do not what the future holds ?

It seems it is just another way of marketing. There were 3000 connections made and 7000 comments about the wedding online. Everything related to this marriage is also virtual. Let’s hope they live happily ever after and have a healthy family !