She's young, beautiful, and fluent in several languages.

Sakura Sanae, one of the newest entrants to the Japanese diplomatic corps, and Tokyo's goodwill ambassador to the ASEAN nations, is also entirely computer generated.

With Japan's difficulty in bridging the language barrier on the international stage long noted, cynics might suggest that it has decided to digitize its diplomatic service to spare its diplomats and bureaucrats from troublesome language classes.