This paper first describes two independently conducted research strands on affective human–computer interaction: one on an emotion simulation system for an expressive 3D humanoid agent called Max, which was designed at the University of Bielefeld [8, 2]; the other one on a real-time system for empathic (agent) feedback that is based on human emotional states derived from physiological information, and developed at the University of Tokyo and the National Institute of Informatics [15]. Then, the integration of both systems is suggested for the purpose of realizing a highly believable agent with empathic qualities.