Remember the movie S1m0ne? The one where Al Pacino creates a computer simulation of the perfect lead actress for his movie because he’s tired of dealing with divas? And she became a huge star in the movie and the hot actress who played her kind of disappeared into TV roles? And then nobody knew how to spell the title and Pacino’s hair was kind of scary and we all just decided to forget it ever happened (you were at that meeting we had right)?
Well, “good” news: Japanese pop group AKB48 and and their candy company sponsor Ezaki Glico just trolled everybody hard by adding a new member to the group named Aimi Eguchi. As you can see in the videos below, she’s adorable but vaguely creepy. Adorable in that she’s a composite of cute features from six other members of the band. Vaguely creepy in that she’s a composite of cute features from six other members of the band.
The band’s fans were at first fooled by the CGI work and the profile of Aimi added to the band’s website. AKB48 has a constantly changing line-up of members split up into four teams. They currently have 58 band members and hold a Guinness World Record for “pop group with the greatest number of members”. So nobody thought it was strange when Aimi’s profile appeared, stating she was a sixteen-year-old (have a seat over here) track and field competitor from Saitama who had appeared in Shueisha’s Weekly Playboy magazine. They let sixteen-year-olds in a Playboy magazine there? Have a seat over here, Japan.
Here’s the candy commercial with the band. See if you can spot the fake girl:
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/DnWFbh69Hzg?version=3&hl=en_US
Here’s a video of just Aimi Eguchi. Pretty good CG work, although her lips don’t move quite right and there isn’t enough movement in the cheeks.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/5Ji3R_gVWDw?version=3&hl=en_US
And here’s a making of:
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/aIpYpRobez4?version=3&hl=en_US
And here are 20 of the 58 members of AKB48, assuming none of them have been defeated in a sword fight and replaced by the victor (I assume that’s how girls get into these bands).
