The Asian country's population is plummeting as fewer babies are born, raising fears that the Japanese will become an "endangered species". In 2018, approximately 921,000 babies were born in Japan, 25,000 less than in 2017.

Japanese officials said this was the lowest level since records began in 1899. About 1.3 million people died that year, which meant the population plummeted by nearly 500,000. Dr Kate Devlin, senior lecturer in society, culture and artificial intelligence at King's College London and a leading expert in the field, warned that sex robots could exacerbate the crisis. Dr Doblin said: “In countries such as Japan, there are concerns that the situation with sex dolls could be even worse.

"Loneliness is a serious social problem," he told the Daily Star. "Now we have artificial intelligence girlfriends." "Even for men who are interested in buying female robot sex dolls, they are also looking for a partner." The book focuses on how life-size shemale sex dolls "reinforce segregation and alienation ".

Love dolls are not a unique phenomenon in Japan. Sales of love dolls are growing rapidly around the world. According to plush toy company Dutch Wife, 2,000 pornographic devices were sold in Japan in 2017 alone, costing £4,600 each. "It's awesome," said sex doll salesman Nobuo Tanaka. "It looks like a doll, but it feels like it's really alive." "When you have sex with your wife, there's something wrong. .” Maybe that’s not the case. It doesn't matter as long as there is a male sex doll. "Japan's biggest problem is the declining birth rate and population," said Kanako Amano, a population expert at the NLI Research Institute in Tokyo.