Recently fans of popular Japanese idol group AKB48 were surprised to find the band had a new member, featured in a short commercial for a candy company. Since it has been revealed that the new ‘trainee,’ Aimi Eguchi, was in fact a digitized composite of some of her fellow band members.
Using different features from each of their faces, the character of Aimi was created and listed on the band’s website along side the others. For those not familiar with the pop group, it’s no small operation. There are currently 58 members, so the addition of one more might not be significant if she weren’t as unusual as Aimi.
Check out the video below that shows a little about how Aimi was composed. This is one helluva way to sell some candy!
Of course virtual pop idols are not exactly new in Japan. Hatsune Miku is still the reigning queen of the virtual pop scene, having performed live concerts as a 3D projection in front of packed stadiums. More recently there is a 3D tabletop hologram projection of Hatsune Miku being displayed at Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology. Read more about that over on Crunchgear.
[Via io9, photo from xpp.peps.jp]
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