{"id":9424,"date":"2011-06-26T05:06:24","date_gmt":"2011-06-26T05:06:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-06-26T05:06:49","modified_gmt":"2011-06-26T05:06:49","slug":"Fans-surprised-that-Japanese-pop-idol-is-a-fake-","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=9424","title":{"rendered":"Fans surprised that Japanese pop idol is a fake!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Japanese geekdom was reportedly shocked of late to learn that the newest member of AKB48, an all-girl idol band with a rotating roster of fresh teen faces, isn&#8217;t human. <\/p>\n<p>According to her official profile, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.akb48.co.jp\/members\/eguchi_aimi\/\">Aimi Eguchi<\/a> is a 16-year-old from Saitama, north of Tokyo. Her looks might have earned her the prominent spot in confectioner Ezaki Glico&#8217;s ad for Ice no Mi candy balls (see below)&#8211;if only she weren&#8217;t a computer-generated composite. <\/p>\n<p>Eguchi&#8217;s appearance caused a stir among fanboys, and she even appeared in <a href=\"http:\/\/wpb.shueisha.co.jp\/2011\/06\/13\/5219\/\">Japanese magazine Weekly Playboy<\/a>. But their excitement soured when Glico confirmed she&#8217;s fake, according to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/stories\/entertainment\/view\/1136166\/1\/.html\">Channel News Asia report<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Her face was fashioned from the features of six other band members, as you can see in this video:<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"390\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aIpYpRobez4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p>You have to give credit to Eguchi&#8217;s creators for the distinct realism of their work. <\/p>\n<p>Eguchi introduces herself in Japanese and asks fans to support her.<br \/>\n<iframe width=\"500\" height=\"390\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5Ji3R_gVWDw\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<strong>Her voice is that of AKB48 member Yukari Sasaki<\/strong>. Eguchi&#8217;s a little robotic, but far more believable than an Actroid robot. <\/p>\n<p>CG stars like holographic singer Hatsune Miku and virtual girlfriends are nothing new, of course. On its special<a href=\"http:\/\/www.icenomi.com\/oshimen\/index.html\"> Oshimen Maker Web site<\/a>, however, Glico is letting fans create their own AKB48 girls by mixing the features of existing members. <\/p>\n<p>You can select custom nose, lips, eyes, and hair. Five million combinations are possible. You can see whose nose, eyes, hair, and lips went into her, too. <\/p>\n<p>After you create her, you can even give your ideal idol a name from a random generator. And then you can click the Facebook and Twitter buttons to tell all your friends. <\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s cool and all, but what would really take the cake would be life-like generated people, not just on the computer screen. One day that will happen!<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"500\" height=\"390\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DnWFbh69Hzg\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/singularityhub.com\/2011\/06\/22\/new-japanese-pop-idol-shocks-fans-with-news%E2%80%93shes-not-real-video\/?utm_source=feedburner&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SingularityHub+%28Singularity+Hub%29&#038;utm_content=Google+Reader\">via Singularityhub.com<\/a><br \/>\n<!--break--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Japanese geekdom was reportedly shocked of late to learn that the newest member of AKB48, an all-girl idol band with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"colormag-highlighted-post":false,"colormag-featured-post-medium":false,"colormag-featured-post-small":false,"colormag-featured-image":false,"colormag-default-news":false,"colormag-featured-image-large":false,"colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":false,"colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":false,"colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":false,"colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":false},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"1","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Japanese geekdom was reportedly shocked of late to learn that the newest member of AKB48, an all-girl idol band with","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":138,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":2,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":false,"medium":false,"thumbnail":false},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":1,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"<a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1\">News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}