In almost every way, Akihiko Kondo is an ordinary Japanese man. He's pleasant and easy to talk to. He has friends and a steady job and wears a suit and tie to work. There's just one exception: Kondo is married to a fictional character. His beloved, Hatsune Miku, is a turquoise-haired, computer-synthesized pop singer who has toured with Lady Gaga and starred in video games.

Google Assistant and Alexa may pretend to have "personality," but they really don't. Telling a joke when asked does not make any of them a great raconteur. This is fine for two reasons. First, it's not what they're for, and second, giving an artificial creation personality is very, very difficult. Gatebox, the company behind the eponymous product, is succeeding where others have either failed, or aren't even trying.

While nuances separate their individual capabilities, they all take roughly the same form: a human-like voice embedded into a smart speaker, mobile phone, automobile, or similar piece of hardware. Japanese messaging giant Line, however, wants to give virtual assistants a more human form. The company this week opened preorders for the latest iteration of the Gatebox virtual home robot, a holographic character that is designed to provide companionship to its owner. The Gatebox is a little table lamp-sized glass case that uses projections and sensors to create a life-like character, called Hikari Azuma, that the user can interact with. By way of a quick recap, the Gatebox was originally developed by a Japanese firm called Vinclu, which launched a limited run of 300 units in 2016, priced at the equivalent of around $2,670 each. It followed up a year later with another run of 39 units before Line acquired a majority stake in the company.

Japan has a sex problem. The country's birthrate is shrinking year after year, to the point where deaths are outpacing births. Simply put, Japan's population is decreasing. But let's be clear: Population change is a complicated subject affected by many factors. A 2016 study by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research in Japan, for instance, found that "almost 70 percent of unmarried men and 60 percent of unmarried women are not in a relationship."

By Pavel Alpeyev When Siri is asked whether she has a boyfriend, the iPhone's digital assistant is usually quick to deflect the question with a quip about drones always trying to pick her up. For Minori Takechi, founder of Vinclu, that's a missed opportunity. Takechi is the creator of Hikari Azuma, a miniskirt-wearing avatar. She can hold a basic conversation and wake you up in the morning by turning on the lights. Hikari will message you at work and greet you when you return home.

When Siri is asked whether she has a boyfriend, the iPhone's digital assistant is usually quick to deflect the question with a quip about drones always trying to pick her up. Takechi is the creator of Hikari Azuma, a miniskirt-wearing avatar. She can hold a basic conversation and wake you up in the morning by turning on the lights. Hikari will message you at work and greet you when you return home. She'll also set you back about ¥300,000.

When Siri is asked whether she has a boyfriend, the iPhone's digital assistant is usually quick to deflect the question with a quip about drones always trying to pick her up. Takechi is the creator of Hikari Azuma, a miniskirt-wearing avatar. She can hold a basic conversation and wake you up in the morning by turning on the lights. Hikari will message you at work and greet you when you return home. She'll also set you back about ¥300,000.

Would you like to have an own anime-styled companion AI at home? Japanese company Gatebox has been working on a digital wife for lonely people. Whether one might find that awkward or not, the technology of their "virtual home robot" named "Azuma Hikari" is interesting, to say the least. If it helps someone to feel better in their lives, why not? This is the objective of technology to begin with.

"Ohhh, you've got a new collar? Good boy! Do you want to go for a walk? I should have been so embarrassed saying these words. I was talking to a dog, which obviously didn't understand what I was saying, and not surprisingly, gave no reply at all; yet I thought nothing of it, and the other people around me thought the interaction (such as it was) was perfectly normal. No one gave me a second glance.

Gatebox Pre-Order Movie Gatebox is the world-first virtual home robot with which you can spend your everyday life with your favorite characters. To celebrate the Gatebox special advance sale on December, 14th, 2016, we made this video showcasing the special charm that Gatebox can bring forth throughout a single day.