(the) Road to the Deep East

It is Tanabata today, the only day in a year that a man and woman living separately across the Mily Way are allowed to meet up and make love. In Japan, children write their dream on a piece of rectangle paper and bind to a bamboo grass tree to make a wish.

And on this Tanabata day, a miracle occurred. But it was not for children, but for the adults who couldn't become adults, mentally, and maybe sexually.

Early this morning, one man who loves the video game 'the Idol M@Ster Live 4U ', the video game for Xbox with which people can produce a concert of 3D anime characters, found out a special cheat command to erase the background of the live concert scene.


Some may say, it's just a trivial bug, but we have to notice the character of this video game and how this video game became popular, and understand how important this discovery is.

It's sure this video game is designed attractively – especially for otaku people. Almost all essences of 'moe', or charm of otaku anime girl character – for example, tsundere, kyonyuu(big boobs), hinnyuu(small boobs), lolicon, binbou(poor) – are included in this video game.

(*Personally, I have never thought anime charaters are more attractive than girls in reality, but I have to admit, the things under their necks are attractive. And if I were still an idol otaku, I might have liked this song musically. )


However, it was not the company, Bandai-Namuco but fans of this video game that made this video game famous. A lot of 'producers' created fan movies of these characters to promote the characters. In fact , over 3600 copies are sold via niconico douga which broadcasts this fan movies, and this sales is as much as 10% of whole sales of this video game.

So, this new discovery to erase the background of the character can become an innovation of these mad movie makers. It works like a chroma key, and people can mix this movie with other movies or images.

Until this discovery, a lot of fan fiction producers had been cutting the character's figure out of every scenes of movies by hands, but this new technology enables them to reduce the time and cost drastically. For these creaters It must be equal to the invention of steam engine or plane in outr history. Some people began to call this discovery, 七夕革命(Tanabata Revolution).

Was this Tanabata Revolution born from just a bug ? I don't think so. It seems Bandai-Namuko had already prepared this hidden mode for the fan video makers.

It is very contrary to what happened anime industry few days back. (reference). Kadokawa began to certificate some clips on youtube 'official mad movies', but still the most of anime productions are negative about fan fictions.

On the other hands, this video game maker prepared the hidden command to encourage and motivate fan fictions.

Which style will become the winner in the end? Well, if they are Kadokawa and Bandai-Namuko, this Tanabata Revolution will become a true July Revolution of Japanese otaku industry.


[Updated]
Here's the outcome of Tanabata Revolution.

All I can say is,, we don't need Momusu or AKB48 anymore. Now anime characters can do better on your desk.