Mirai News
One of my focuses for this year is IP (Intellectual Property) content development inspired by comrades who are leading the way - Aki Takanori (GSC Boss), Takaaki Kidani (Bushiroad boss) and Kosaka-san (Nitroplus boss) - that IP being our mascot Mirai Suenaga.
Will start posting a series called Mirai News which will keep you up to date with what Mirai-chan is up to and hopefully you may find a few pointers should you decide that you want to develop your own IP too. Still new at all of this though and am learning as I go along. One of the key things to do is to try out anything and everything.
First up is the Multi Purpose Mirai Suenaga Microfiber Towel exclusive to AmiAmi retailing at 500 yen.
Tis multi purpose as you can use it for many different applications. For example, you can recycle your old sweaters by stitching the towel on your chest like I have done here - an instant Mirai-chan T-shirt.
Tis multi purpose as you can use it for many different applications. For example, you can recycle your old sweaters by stitching the towel on your chest like I have done here - an instant Mirai-chan T-shirt.
For some reason, Yoshimi had holes in her sweater around the chest area. I had no idea why but gave her a Mirai towel to cover up - she now walks around like this all the time and as you can see it looks perfectly natural.
Mirai Towel comes in handy around the table - use it to carry around and wipe chopsticks, wipe the table and then finish off by wiping your face and armpits.
If you are out n about and have forgotten your brolley, you can use Mirai Towel to defend yourself from the rain. You may die from a cold after getting your body soaked but at least you wont die from a headache.
As you know, many folks in Japan wear Surgical Masks like this. Why spend extra money for masks when you can use the same Mirai Towel as a mask.
Mirai Towel comes in handy once again - why waste money on a load of tissues when you can repeatedly blow your snot in the same towel over and over again? The snot can then be removed by your fingers and rolled up into a putty which you can then use to stick posters up on the wall. You may even want to package up the snot and sell it to your best friends who don't have time to go to the shops to get some bubblegum.
Its taken several years to develop Mirai Towel so that it can also be used in stealth operations like this. If you have done something naughty, you can use Mirai Towel to get rid of unwanted fingerprints - although you probably don't want to put one hand to the glass like I am doing here or you will be trying to wipe away the finger prints forever.
Humans were designed to consume and eject. When you got to go, you got to go. But without any toilet paper handy, wiping poo away with your sleeve can get a wee bit messy. Depending on whether you had something spicy the night before, you could slip and fall with your face in the poo which could get stuck in yor eyes or between your teeth. Could possibly be an unpleasant experience.
Mirai Towel to the rescue. The great thing about Mirai Towel is the SCFFUAPIM (Sterilization Compound Funnel Filter Unit And Peanut Injection Module) which will sterilize any poo that's been wiped by the towel and inject 5gms of crushed peanuts into the sterilized poo - meaning that you can then spread it directly on toast. The TEU (Taste Enhancing Unit) will inject flavors into the poo to make it taste just like peanut butter.
Mirai-chan is now a mascot for the Japanese Governments Agency of Cultural Affairs. I'll be speaking at one of their events at Keio University on Japanese culture around the world. Its free to participate but you need to register. If you are going then see you on the 21st of March. More details at http://humanmedia.co.jp/virtualmuseum/index.html
And this is the artwork for the event. Japan then and now.
For folks who keep up with contents via the RSS feed or daily email subscription, you may want to have a gander at the new header which you can see on the top page.
I'll talk about that new Mirai illustration that you see in the corner at a later date - there are three combination's of that pose.
The site branding is slowly transitioning from being called "dannychoo.com" to "Culture Japan." The TV show will be called "Culture Japan TV."
The header features a backdrop with iconic symbols representing Japan that I got from your feedback in the Japan Landscapes post. Chun-sensei did the work on the symbols like Godzilla, Fujisan etc. I threw everything together in Fireworks, added some buildings and just changed the opacity settings to add slight depth to the image.
The very cute little dot pixel sprites running around was done by AraydenAlpha during all his free time. Thanks to both Chun and Arayden for a great job!
I've included many different sizes for you to play with - feel free to do what you want with them. You can also go to your browser menu to save the whole page instead of right clicking and saving each one.
On the top page in the lower left corner, you will notice the dancing girls - Haruka, Mirai and kanata. As you can see, Haruka is the mischievous girl ^^;
Excellent work by Kaizeru.
I usually commission work from folks who have previously shared their work with on figure.fm. Kaizeru previously illustrated this Milk Mirai which I really liked. Including various sizes of the dancing girls for you to play with - again feel free to stick em on your blog or wot not.
Excellent work by Kaizeru.
I usually commission work from folks who have previously shared their work with on figure.fm. Kaizeru previously illustrated this Milk Mirai which I really liked. Including various sizes of the dancing girls for you to play with - again feel free to stick em on your blog or wot not.
Mentioned this before but Mirai-chan will be making cameo appearances in Japanese anime titles starting this Summer season. One of the titles has a scene in Episode 4 that is just one word - Wow! We are also planning spinoff products from some of the appearances ^^
I will un-mosaic this photo when the time comes to let you know the first title that she will be in - although the colors probably give it away ^^;
I will un-mosaic this photo when the time comes to let you know the first title that she will be in - although the colors probably give it away ^^;
Got fab news from Good Smile Company the other day - we managed to sell much more units than anticipated of figma Mirai. To be honest I didn't think we would sell that many and also had no idea that Mirai-chan was that popular in Japan. She made it to the top 3 best selling toy on Amazon Japan. Thank you to all who pre-ordered her!
So now that we hit the target for figma, does it mean that the Nendoroid is next and is this a taste of what she will look like? Or will she be bundled with a set of other Nendoroid Puchi from one of the anime series that shes going to appear in?
As for the artwork - done by the talented Radiant Dreamer.
The other IP I'm working on is Nanami Yume who has been gaining some traction in the Japanese Internets. A few posts about Nanami-chan below.
http://www.moeplus.com/2011/02/blog-post\_28.html
http://matomate.blog133.fc2.com/blog-entry-1268.html
http://arukugamu.blog70.fc2.com/blog-entry-2957.html
http://blog.livedoor.jp/anigam/archives/2363140.html
http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2129887544922287701
http://notzubon.blog101.fc2.com/blog-entry-632.html
http://news2ch.6.ql.bz/index.php?page=single\&cat=7\&logid=1298809080
http://blog.livedoor.jp/ryo1415/archives/51820466.html
http://newsmoe.blog121.fc2.com/blog-entry-4550.html
http://web2ch.org/ag/toki/moeplus/1298809080/
http://2chtimes.com/moeplus/1298809080
http://ameblo.jp/tatibana-kanade/entry-10816575255.html
http://ceron.jp/url/matomate.blog133.fc2.com/blog-entry-1268.html
http://211.125.84.145/read/news/1298884034.html
http://logsoku.com/thread/hato.2ch.net/news/1298884034/
http://bbynews-2ch.seesaa.net/article/188091712.html
http://211.125.84.145/read/moeplus/1298809080.html
http://124.41.85.61/?s=%E5%A4%A2%E4%B8%83%E6%B5%B7
http://2chradio.com/dat/moeplus1298809080.html
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/sulmari\_21/32943541.html
http://minkara.carview.co.jp/userid/147275/blog/21624297/
http://undergroundsokuhou.blog95.fc2.com/blog-entry-117.html
http://www.moeplus.com/2011/02/blog-post\_28.html
http://matomate.blog133.fc2.com/blog-entry-1268.html
http://arukugamu.blog70.fc2.com/blog-entry-2957.html
http://blog.livedoor.jp/anigam/archives/2363140.html
http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2129887544922287701
http://notzubon.blog101.fc2.com/blog-entry-632.html
http://news2ch.6.ql.bz/index.php?page=single\&cat=7\&logid=1298809080
http://blog.livedoor.jp/ryo1415/archives/51820466.html
http://newsmoe.blog121.fc2.com/blog-entry-4550.html
http://web2ch.org/ag/toki/moeplus/1298809080/
http://2chtimes.com/moeplus/1298809080
http://ameblo.jp/tatibana-kanade/entry-10816575255.html
http://ceron.jp/url/matomate.blog133.fc2.com/blog-entry-1268.html
http://211.125.84.145/read/news/1298884034.html
http://logsoku.com/thread/hato.2ch.net/news/1298884034/
http://bbynews-2ch.seesaa.net/article/188091712.html
http://211.125.84.145/read/moeplus/1298809080.html
http://124.41.85.61/?s=%E5%A4%A2%E4%B8%83%E6%B5%B7
http://2chradio.com/dat/moeplus1298809080.html
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/sulmari\_21/32943541.html
http://minkara.carview.co.jp/userid/147275/blog/21624297/
http://undergroundsokuhou.blog95.fc2.com/blog-entry-117.html
Nanami does the happy dance - work also done by Kaizeru.
And something I forgot post ages ago - Chun's illustration of Mirai Bond?