When showbiz and gaming circles start interactively.
Twenty years ago, a game that allowed players to slash and kill monsters in the face of the popular actor "Takeshi Kaneshiro" became the focus of discussion at that time. Three years later, Capcom joined Jean Renault in "something new", and the former had a co-performance that spanned time and nationality.
This is probably the first time I have come to my understanding that there is also a star effect in the video game world.
"Onimusha 3" (2004)
Today, inviting some live actors to publicize the game, or let them become the protagonists of the game, has long been nothing new, the benefit of this is very obvious, that is, it can bring "circle-breaking" topic heat to the game.
Earlier last month, Sega announced the sequel to Eye of Judgment: The Last Words of Death (hereinafter referred to as "Eye of Judgment"), Lost Judgment: Untried Memories, allowing the male protagonist "Takayuki Hachijin" and his actor Takuya Kimura to once again return to the vision of a wide range of players.
The Lost Judgment: Memories of the Untried
If you look at the game content alone, "Eye of Judgment" is just an experimental work that modifies the subtle settings of its "Dragon among Men" system and world view to open up new user groups, although it has a mature and complete story structure, which is similar to many gameplay designs such as "tail line" and "drone", but it seems to have some lack of stamina.
But it is such an experimental work, but it is a priority to develop a sequel than the orthodox "Dragon among Men" series- especially at a time when the owner Sega is forced to sell his property and the general director of the series, Minoru Yue, is demoted from director.
Although this game may involve a lot of material reuse of Dragon among Men 7
As a member of SMAP, Japan's once "most popular male idol group", Kimura Takuya's popularity can be said to be the "top stream" in the showbiz circle, and as long as the film and television drama has his appearance, the ratings are guaranteed in advance. I'm not sure how much Takuya Kimura's face is worth, but judging from the rumors that he pays about 4.5 million yen per episode of the TV series, and the lines that last more than 1,000 minutes in the entire game, Sega should have invested no less money.
For now, the money spent in "Eye of Judgment" is not unjust, it is precisely because of the existence of Takuya Kimura that this game has received a lot of attention, and from the publicity of this sequel, it is quite a posture that will replace the main series and become the top card of the family, which may be the most successful "star marketing" case in the game industry in recent years in addition to "Cyberpunk 2077" (although its final result is not ideal).
The addition of Keanu Reeves has earned enough buzz for Cyberpunk 2077
In recent years, when major game manufacturers have begun to rack their brains and want to use existing resources to make some new jobs, "let the stars do some sand sculpture" has obviously become a good choice, whether active or passive, there is fun.
But even voice actors have "idol baggage" at the moment, completely "eat by the face" of film and television actors, naturally there are countless "taboos", and Kimura Takuya is a generation of national idols, the roles he plays are mostly handsome and handsome, even if the player how to use him to live, it is much better than other "Dragons of Man" participants treatment, think about kiryu Ichima in the end how many star celebrities, you should understand.
"Takuya Kimura, who was arrested for making trouble in the streets"
Unlike film and television dramas with a wider audience, video games with "interactive" characteristics, while ensuring gameplay and fun, but also controlling the final cost of the game is not a simple thing, and now the production team is also shouldering the responsibility of protecting the image of the actors.
However, not all actors are as attentive to maintaining their image as Takuya Kimura. On the contrary, there are a few actors who seem to be completely indifferent to their personal image, and even make people wonder whether he is secretly being held hostage by game manufacturers. Speaking of the most popular actor in the Japanese game industry, there is one person who must be mentioned, that is, Takayuki Yamada, the number one fan in the Japanese showbiz industry.
Takayuki Yamada
Also debuting in high school, Takayuki Yamada took the traditional actor path, because of his good looks, early in his actor's career, he played many "beautiful teenager" roles, including "White Night Walk" adapted from Keigo Higashino's novel, and the sensational Japanese "pure love drama" "Call for Love in the Center of the World", which has been frequently mentioned until now.
However, to say that the domestic audience is most familiar with the audience, it is probably his role as "Serizawa Tama Yu" in "Hot Blood College (クローズ ZERO)". In the play, as the "man closest to the summit of Suzuran", he plays with the protagonist Takitani Genji, and sees many innocent teenagers "going astray", which has aroused social discussion and attention.
Takayuki Yamada's Serizawa Tama Yu is quite restored
By the way, the actor of Genji Takitani, in 2016, Oguri Shun, who had a good relationship with Takayuki Yamada in private, played the leader of the Higashijo Kai Someya family in "Dragon among Men 6", and the reason why he starred in the game was not only because he was a fan of the series, but also because another of his friends in the show business circle starred in the recommendation of Shunsuke Ohto in "Dragon among Men 5".
Now it seems that the live-action cast of "Dragon among Men 6" is also considered luxurious
On the other hand, fans also feel a little sorry that Takayuki Yamada did not appear in "Dragon among Men", after all, at this time, he has become a household name in the game circle.
In 2011, a late-night TV series called "Yoshihiko the Brave and the City of the Demon King" aired on TV Tokyo, in which Takayuki Yamada played the role of Yoshihiko the Brave, which was the first time he crossed paths with video games in the public eye. "Brave Yoshihiko and the City of the Demon King" focuses on "low-consumption adventure", is a typical low-cost nonsense comedy, the film is full of various ridicule and sand sculpture "interpretation" of the game plot (especially SE's "Dragon Quest" series), and many clips have become the most popular meme "memes" on the internet in Chinese after screenshot editing.
Even if you haven't seen a TV series, you must have seen this sand sculpture expression called "a dagger coated with poison"
Not only is the brave person's own dress taken from "Dragon Quest 5: The Flower Wedding in the Sky", but even the image of the monster encountered along the way is directly taken. However, due to the implementation of the "low-cost" goal set at the beginning of the film, these monsters are all "glued" from corrugated paper, making the already nonsensical scene more sand sculpture, if it were not for the popular actors who were not random and the plot design was just right, it would most likely be regarded as a "COSPLAY short drama" shot by students.
In the film, the brave man played by Takayuki Yamada is seriously outside, and his words and deeds are also full of funny energy.
In addition to the "Dragon Quest" series, you can also see the shadow of many Japanese games in the film
Although the show made a lot of ridicule about "Dragon Quest", it successfully won the audience's welcome with a super low budget, and during the broadcast of the first season of the TV series, Yuji Horii, the father of "Dragon Quest", also ran to the crew and praised the restoration of the monster image made of paper in the play, and the image of these monsters was actually produced with the assistance of SE.
I don't know if it is this film that allows Sony to see Takayuki Yamada's talent in "whole life", a year after the PS4 was released in Japan, Yamada Takayuki shot two TV commercials for Sony with the keyword of "the actors have arrived". In the advertisement, as an actor, Takayuki Yamada, holding a newly bought PS4, smiles and refuses to work on the film, and in order to free up time playing games, he wears ancient Roman armor and kneels to the agent.
Although there has been "Toshitaza", Japan's most "advanced" way of requesting, the creativity of these two advertisements can only be regarded as ordinary, if you must do a level appraisal, it is probably between ordinary levels, compared with the performance of Takayuki Nakayama in "Yoshihiko the Brave and the City of The Demon King", it is really a bit of a big deal.
And the ad producers seem to be aware of this. Soon, they found Takayuki Yamada and filmed an advertisement promoting "Batman: Arkham Knight", which was a bit of a way. When he stood in his chair and threw off his cloak and shouted the classic line "I am Batman", which is common all over the world, it was really a bit cool.
After that, there is also a scene where Takayuki Yamada pretends to fly against a fan
In fact, as early as the PlayStation 1 era in the last century, Sony has left a deep impression on the audience with sand sculptures and "confusing" advertisements, but breaking the common sense in people's lives and combining exaggerated performances to convey the most direct message is also where these advertisements have been successful, but I don't know whether Takayuki Yamada has carefully considered these issues before signing the contract.
Up to now, you can still see the "PS Fan CM Collection" produced by Japanese netizens, and many of them even use "weird" to describe it more appropriately
Since then, Takayuki Yamada has become a resident guest of the PS4 game commercial, appearing on television almost every year at a stable frequency, and the image has become more and more crumbling.
In 2016, "Dragon Quest: Heroes 2" was about to be released, SE and Sony, and found the "former brave" Takayuki Yamada, wanting him to show his long-precipitated "DQ love" in the advertisement. The final advertisement was divided into two parts, one side of the office worker Takayuki Yamada's salary promotion, accompanied by various game effect sounds, and the other about a company meeting using "spells".
According to Takayuki Yamada, he is a loyal Dragon Quest player and loves to play Call of Duty or something.
In addition to the "whole life" spirit of this advertisement, it also directly pokes at the feelings of all "DQ" players, in the film, Yamada Takayuki used the terminology in "Dragon Quest" to open a meeting that no one understands, if you are not a series player, you probably don't know what he is talking about.
Shouting at the sleeping people in the meeting, "Sameha (the effect in the game is to cancel our sleep state)"
After that, Takayuki Yamada was directly upgraded to the image spokesperson of PlayStation, and began to sing and dance in PS4 ads, and even pulled up the sword of the brave to face the huge monster, and several films were special effects, showing the "immersive play experience" of the PS brand' main hit.
However, the ads that really make fans start to worry about whether Takayuki Yamada has any handles in Sony's hands are the two promotional ads of Monster Hunter: World in 2018, which created the "immortal myth" of Takayuki Yamada in the game advertising industry.
In the advertising plot, Takayuki Yamada, who was originally resting on the set, suddenly played the "strange hunting game" alone after hearing the word "strange hunting", successively incarnated into the world of exterminating dragons, scratching birds, floating dragons and horned dragons, stirring up the crew into a mess, and finally falling net under the round-up of everyone, the whole process of restoring the ecological performance of several monsters, I am afraid that Capcom is ashamed of himself.
Especially this scratching bird, whether it is the look or action is very restored
The heat of the "Strange Hunting World Imitation Show" here has not completely dissipated, and Sony has not forgotten to give himself a good life. Around 2018, just in time for the "virtual anchor (Vtuber)" blowout, Sony slapped his head, simply made Takayuki Yamada into a "Vtuber", in a MV called "Takayuki Yamada 4G, Start", a virtual head calling himself "Takayuki Yamada" in the cyberspace, with the rhythm of the PS4 masterpiece simulcast, rampage plus transformation finally let him break through the limits of the human body.
Of course, the money that Takayuki Yamada owes to Sony is not true, and he has not been kidnapped by Sony, but this series of advertisements has indeed set up the "stereotype" of "Takayuki Yamada = sand sculpture advertisement" in the hearts of many players, but also because of this, this male star in the film and television industry who is entering middle age has a group of "player fans" whose original attributes do not match.
In 2019, during the pre-release promotion of "Death Stranding", Sony Japan arranged a series of dialogue programs, which recruited game star Max Mickelson, the game live group 2Bro, and Takayuki Yamada to have a dialogue with Hideo Kojima about creation and game content.
Hideo Kojima and Takayuki Yamada (right)
Unfortunately, perhaps because of the epidemic, after this, Yamada Takayuki did not shoot other game advertisements, and the only intersection with video games was only the trial play and live activities of the PS5 version of "Original God", and it was not much different from most of the artist's game live, and the unique set of "roaring" and "Yan Yi" in its advertisements could not see a little shadow.
In March this year, the new series "Monster Hunter: Rise" landed on the NS platform, and Capcom once again needed a popular star to promote the work, but this time there was nothing to do with Takayuki Yamada.
In the TV scene, a short-haired woman holding a hunter's sword taught the students the game knowledge of "Rise", and before the class was halfway through, she personally demonstrated the core "Xiang Worm" system of the game
It is not that Honda wing is not good, on the contrary, born in 1992, the cute-looking Honda wing is probably the actress with the strongest "player flavor" in the current Japanese traditional showbiz. In addition to being a loyal gamer and live streamer, she also has a terrible experience of playing for 18 hours a day and beating the current "Poof" professional players on variety shows (in the case of the other party's release of water).
However, compared to Takayuki Yamada's "sand sculpture interpretation" that retracts freely, no matter who it is, it is inevitable that anyone will feel some regret.
Honda Wing's TV commercial "Monster Hunter Teacher" for Monster Hunter: Rise
In retrospect, some ad ideas, perhaps only a specific group of people, could perform them perfectly, like the Monster Hunter: World ad tailored for Takayuki Yamada. At a time when Sony is increasingly shifting its business focus away from Japan, I don't know if players will have the opportunity to see this former "Serizawa Tama Yu" and conduct another "game performance show" dedicated to players.