ANIMATION
She started life as a sexy comic book character. But when Yuki Terai was uploaded to Japanese computer animator Kenichi Kutsugi's Web site in 1999, a second career was born. Kutsugi and Tokyo-based Frog Entertainment turned Yuki into a celebrity who acts, sings, and dances. "Today, we think she is the most popular CG character in Japan," says Frog CEO Toyisho Nagata. Yuki does movies, games, music videos, cell phone wallpapers, and digital trading cards.
The pixel-perfect pinup is conquering Japan because she embodies a subservient, nonthreatening "male fantasy ideal," says Edward Ifshin, former director of the American Cultural Center in Kyoto. That may explain why Japanese consumers have snapped up 50,000 copies of her poster. Some 20,000 fans have downloaded alluring images for their cell phones.
Can the CG pixie become a digital geisha for US geeks? Nagata hopes so. He is looking for American partners and hopes to introduce Yuki stateside later this year.
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