The latest buzz on the internet says that the latest addition of the girl group AKB48 is not a real person, but a CGI creation.
Aimi Eguchi, the latest star of the girl band AKB 48, wrote on her website that she was just a normal 16-year-old from the northern parts of Tokyo and she enjoys track and field. Her cute features skyrocketed her popularity.
Eguchi blogged that her goal was “to become a new idol like never before by taking the best parts of my AKB big sisters.”
As it turns out, Eguchi is a composite CGI creation using various body parts of 7 AKB48 band members.
According to an article in the Telegraph, “Her less than organic origins were exposed when fans of the band became suspicious about the appearance of its newest member, remarking that she bore a striking similarity to some of her band-mates. While it is not unusual for new faces to join AKB – the band has 48 members with older girls often being replaced by newcomers when they “graduate” onto modelling and acting – something was obviously amiss.”
“And there were other clues. Her birthday – February 11 – is the date of the founding in 1922 of confectioner Ezaki Glico and rearranging the letters of her name in Japanese spells out the company’s name,” followed the article. “Soon, Ezaki Glico was forced to come clean and admit that the nation’s newest pop sensation was a fake. It turned out that Miss Eguchi had been born from a computer programme and piece together from the best features of six of the band members. In fact, she had borrowed the the eyes of Atsuko Maeda, the mouth of Mariko Shinoda and the nose of Tomomi Itano. Her singing voice came straight from the vocal chords of Yukari Sasaki.”
This unveiling has shocked a lot of fans, especially those who were defending her humanity.
Japan already has a virtual pop star named Hatsune Miku, a hologram, much like UK’s Gorrilaz.
At least there would be no lip sinking, is this what pop stars will be like in the future?
