Love Knows No Boundaries
By wchung | 22 Feb, 2025

What causes man to marry a virtual girlfriend?

I was going to write about the upcoming holiday season but this topic just kept creeping up on the blogs I lurk on.

On Sunday, November 22nd, a Japanese man known as Sal9000 decided to finally settle down and tie the knot with his longtime girlfriend, Nene Anegasaki. It was a wedding to remember and was live-broadcast over the web to over 3000 people with over 7000 comments made. Bigger than your typical wedding right? So what’s the big deal?

Sal9000 is a real-life, oxygen-breathing Japanese man who has been into games categorized as dating sims for quite some time now, and Nene Anegasaki is the virtual woman he is dating in the Nintendo DS game Love Plus. Kinda crazy, no? He’s so into the experience of dating a virtual woman and the feeling it creates of falling in love that he has decided to swear off all other virtual women in other games and platforms to solely devote his time and effort to nurturing his relationship with his beloved Nene Anegasaki.

I can’t wrap my head around it. He’s not a bad-looking guy. He could easily get himself a non-virtual girlfriend. I mean, come on. It takes balls to marry your virtual girlfriend for the world to see, more so than asking out some real girl you know. I’m sure he’s had his share of criticism (maybe his parents?), but putting yourself on the internet is a whole ‘nother monster. People sitting from the comfort of their own home will say the most offensive things ever so I’m sure poor Sal9000 got flamed like no other. So I’ll relent from adding fuel to the fire.

I just want to understand a bit more behind the mindset. I enjoy myself a game here and there. I understand the allure of staying virtual and abandoning true human interaction for a little bit of my time but by no means am I an ‘otaku’. Maybe this type of behavior is more prominent and acceptable in Japan? I really can’t make this sort of judgment call until I try the game out myself, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

I can’t get a handle on my own human relationships so a needy virtual girlfriend has no appeal to me. Okay, I’m not gonna lie. The ‘off’ button on the Nintendo DS seems too good to be true, but I’m certainly not gonna pop the question for such a selfish feature.

Have a safe and happy holidays!