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A Japanese man has married a holographic 16-year old girl he has been "in love with" for years at a ceremony in Tokyo.

Akihiko Kondo, 35, tied the knot with the virtual singer, Hatsune Miku, at a ceremony in front of 40 guests.

A rising number of men have married similar holograms in "cross-dimensional" relationships as the number of Japanese men who never marry skyrockets.

Mr Kondo said he was "in love" with the virtual anime character with saucer eyes and long blue pigtails, as the two were unofficially wed at Tokyo city hall this month

But it was not such a happy day for his family as he revealed all of them refused to attend.

"For mother, it wasn't something to celebrate," said the soft-spoken school administrator after signing unofficial marriage papers drawn up by the company who distributes Miku merchandise.

"I've always been in love with Miku-san," said Mr Kondo. "I never cheated on her, I've been thinking about her every day,"

Around 40 guests watched as he tied the knot with his "bride", present in the form of a cat-sized stuffed doll.

As what could be described as an incredibly elaborate Tamagotchi, Miku is a moving, talking hologram, who floats in a $2,800 desktop device.

Who and what is Hatsune Miku? Hatsune Miku is a "Vocaloid" software voicebank developed by Crypton Future Media in 2007, with the design of a blue-haired 16-year-old girl. She is a recognisable character in Japanese pop culture, featuring as a singer at live concerts as an animated projection, and now marketed as a virtual home anime companion. Her voice is modelled from singer Saki Fujita, who has voiced numerous Japanese anime production. Miku has a huge following in Japan, with products and merchandise with her image said to be worth ¥10 billion (£69m).

Mr Kondo said he doesn't care that the marriage isn't legally binding as Miku isn't strictly a form of intelligent life.

He considers himself an ordinary married man - his holographic wife wakes him up each morning and sends him off to his job as an administrator at a school.

"I'm in love with the whole concept of Hatsune Miku but I got married to the Miku of my house," he said, looking at the blue image glowing in a capsule.

In the evening, when he tells her by cellphone that he's coming home, she turns on the lights. Later, she tells him when it's time to go to bed.

He sleeps alongside the doll version of her that attended the wedding, complete with a wedding ring that fits around her left wrist

Gatebox, the company that produces the hologram device featuring Miku, has issued a "marriage certificate", certifies that a human and a virtual character have wed "beyond dimensions".

The company has issued more than 3,700 certificates for "cross-dimension" marriages, and the newlywed said he hopes his story will help others come forward who may be too ashamed to affirm their love for a hologram.

"There must be some people who can't come forward and say they want to hold a wedding. I want to give them a supportive push," he says.

His path to Miku came after difficult encounters with women as an anime-mad teenager.

"Girls would say 'Drop dead, creepy otaku!'," he recalled, using a Japanese slur derogatory to young "geeks" who are obsessed with pop-culture and may have from poor social skills.

As he got older, he said a woman at a previous workplace bullied him into a nervous breakdown and he became determined never to marry.

In Japan, that wouldn't be entirely unusual nowadays. While in 1980, only one in 50 men were unmarried by the age of 50, now that figure is more like a quarter.

But eventually Kondo realised he had been in love with Miku for more than a decade and decided to marry her.

He is happy to be friends with "3D women", but could no longer imaging himself being in a relationship with a human.

Even in a country obsessed with anime, Kondo's wedding shocked many. But he wants to be recognised as a "sexual minority" who can't imagine dating a flesh-and-blood woman.

"It's simply not right, it's as if you were trying to talk a gay man into dating a woman, or a lesbian into a relationship with a man."

"Diversity in society has been long called for," he added.

"It won't necessarily make you happy to be bound to the 'template' of happiness in which a man and woman marry and bear children."

"I believe we must consider all kinds of love and all kinds of happiness."