ORICON.CO.JP: Hideaki Anno, GACKT, Hiroyuki, and Others Take Stage at New Service Executive Meeting: "As You Can See, It's Not Cohesive"

The “POPOPO Service Announcement,” where details of the camera-less video phone “POPOPO” were unveiled for the first time, was held in Tokyo on the 18th. Artist GACKT, Hiroyuki Nishimura, film director Hideaki Anno, Nobuo Kawakami of Dwango, and Junnosuke Yagura of POPOPO appeared on stage as executives of the service.

Anno, GACKT, and Hiroyuki, who don’t usually seem to interact, participated at Kawakami’s invitation, and reporters asked the three about their impressions of each other and the potential synergy between them. Hiroyuki grinned and said, “We just had our first board meeting, in the waiting room. I thought we’d talk about the service, but instead we ended up having a lively discussion about GACKT’s accident.”

Anno frankly stated, “I’ve only seen Hiroyuki online, and GACKT on TV, so I’m nervous.”

GACKT then revealed, “As you can see, we can’t come to an agreement. The meetings aren’t focused on finding a common ground. We’re just saying whatever we want. I think that’s why we’ll create something interesting,” which drew laughter.

The teaser video for “POPOPO” began with the narration, “The last SNS created by humans before the age of AI,” and introduced the involvement of service designer Takayuki Fukatsu, spatial director Kei Kato, designer Tomoyuki Arima, visualist and film director Makoto Tezuka, artist GACKT, and film director Hideaki Anno. It also revealed that Hiroyuki Nishimura and Nobuo Kawakami of Dwango are teaming up again for the first time in 20 years since Nico Nico Douga.

The service will launch today, the 18th, at 3 PM.

Also appearing were film director Makoto Tezuka and guest actor Takeru Satoh.