Trigger Happy
media stars for this reason: desire that can never in principle be reciprocated is thoroughly safe and free of any possible disappointment.
This phenomenon is known in Japan by the term of
disapprobation nijikon fetchi—literally, “twodimensional fetish,” though it more generally covers devotion to any form of manga, anime or threedimensional videogame characters. An interesting symptom of this preference can be seen in the reception of the famous Japanese “virtual idol” Kyoko Date, a thoroughly digital pop singer who was created in 1997 by software engineers collaborating with Japan’s leading modeling agency, Horipro. It sounded like a great idea. But Date’s first CD failed to meet sales expectations. Why? Because she was not deformed; she was overly realistic. Kyoko Date was built piecemeal from existing humans: a singing voice from one star, a talking voice from another actress, motion-captured dance routines and a combination of facial features mapped from photographs of famous models. Date thus actually looked too human.
The limitations of motion-capture animations (applying computerized sensors to the body of a human performer and then applying them to the videogame character) in a dynamic gameplay context
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