Japanese Girls

WiFi Angels

A commercial for NTT’s Hikari Wifi service educates viewers about the possibilities of wireless internet technology:

Cute angels from Sakura Gakuin send data with their arrows. The wireless signal also apparently has an impact on tea leaves. WiFi is amazing!

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KFC Commercial Uses Faux Foreigner

Haruka Ayase pretends to be a foreigner in this KFC commercial:

It’s a commercial announcing the Japan debut of KFC’s Brazer sandwich. The ads say the Brazer is from France, so they’ve given their celebrity spokeswoman blonde hair and have her speaking French-like gibberish. ( The result is probably about as authentically French as Kentucky Fried Chicken’s French cuisine. )

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1-Year-Old Girl Goes Shopping in Japan

“Hajimete no Otsukai” (First Errand) is a Japanese TV show that follows small children as they carry out errands for their parents. Past specials have featured kids traveling across town to buy ingredients for their mom’s kitchen and a small boy riding a bullet train to visit his father’s workplace. Usually, the kids are about 4-years- old, and sometimes an older child will be accompanied by a younger sibling.

Last week, they aired a special that had their youngest-ever solo errand runner. Little Haru is one month shy of second birthday:

Haru’s task is very simple: go down the block and buy some tofu. She still isn’t old enough to talk in full sentences, but she does seem to understand the concept of money.

Japanese people do not regularly send such small children out on errands. This television show always has staff who dress-up like deliverymen or pedestrians. They pretend to not notice the children, but they’re actually there to protect them.

Haru also has the advantage of living in one of Japan’s safest places. She’s a resident of Toshijima, a small island with a population of about 3,000 people. Old fashioned small town life is preserved on the island, with the entire neighborhood knowing each other and collectively making sure children stay safe. It’s not at all unusual for small children to run errands for their parents (although Haru is exceptionally young).

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AKB48′s Tomomi Itano Speaks English

An English language interview with Tomomi Itano of the pop group AKB48:

The whole interview is unnatural that it’s almost painful to watch. It seems that Itano carefully memorized scripted answers to each question, probably without even knowing the meaning of most the English words she was supposed to be pronouncing.

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Japanese-style Duckface

A TV program looks at how foreigners view the “duck mouth” facial expression that many Japanese girls make when posing for photos:

A quick check with people on the street finds that 8 out of 10 Japanese people think it looks cute, while only 2 out of 10 foreigners think so.

Maybe if they learn how to make a proper Japanese duck mouth, they’ll appreciate its cuteness? The program has two Shibuya gals give a proper “cute” makeover to the show’s foreign reporter and an American volunteer:

To increase the cuteness of the duck mouth, some special make-up is necessary. For some reason, it looks freakishly horrible….

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Aimi Eguchi – CG Idol

A Japanese TV show asks foreign tourists to comment on AKB48 member Aimi Eguchi:

Eguchi isn’t a real person. She is a “CG” idol that was created by combining the facial features of several of AKB48′s most popular members. She made her first appearance in a Glico commercial a few weeks ago, and it didn’t take long for fans to realize that she was probably fake (her weird eyes were a big clue). When she failed to make any real life appearances, TV shows joined in on the CG speculation. A few days ago, to the surprise of very few people, it was announced that she was indeed fake.

In the above video clip, foreign tourists are shown still images of the AKB48 members who appeared in the commercial and are asked to identify the computer-generated girl. Only 3 of the 19 people answered correctly. Many thought all of the girls looked real.

To demonstrate how difficult it is to create a cg idol by combining the facial features of real actresses, the show asks a photoshop pro Tokyo’s Digital Hollywood University to create a mixture of Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Halle Berry, Taylor Swift, Anne Hathaway, and January Jones:

The result is horrifyingly sloppy. It’s supposed to be a serious effort, but it looks even worse than some of Conan O’Brien’s silly “If They Mated” images. I really hope that that guy isn’t teaching a photoshop course at that school…

The report points out that Eguchi is hardly the first CG pop star in Asia. Back in 2001, a South Korean pop group apparently had a lead singer that was computer generated (Nazca).

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