Device seeks to fire your voice straight at the bull’s eye in anime fans’ selective attention.

One of the defining characteristics of otaku is an impressive, near-limitless capacity to watch things. Even in this era of unprecedented plenty in anime production, hard-core fans of Japanese animation somehow manage to watch and support dozens of new series each TV season.

Listening, though, is something that otaku aren’t always so good at, especially when the excitement of massing together for an anime event washes over them. Witness, for example, the sprinting hordes of otaku regularly disregarding requests from train station staff to slow down as they dash full-speed to the gates of Comiket each and every time the convention takes place in Tokyo.

But what if you gave those verbal instructions in a voice otaku simply can’t ignore? That’s the aim of the Animegaphone, a megaphone which changes the user’s voice into that of an anime character.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwUGSinj1O8

The creators of the device analyzed he performances of multiple anime voice actors and actresses, then devised parameters that will convert a normal voice into an “anime” one. The hope that by mimicking a voice to which otaku feel a preexisting affinity, rowdy guests at anime events will be more likely to pay attention and comply with organizers’ on-site instructions.

▼ “Please don’t run!” commands a cute anime voice.

In addition to anime events, the Animegaphone’s creators also think it could be useful at concerts and music festivals if calibrated to reproduce the sound of the headlining vocalists’ voices.

The device’s first public demonstration is scheduled for February 18 at the winter iteration of the Wonder Festival convention, which will be held in Chiba’s Makuhari Messe. At the event, the voices of voice actor Hiroaki Hirata (One Piece’s Sanji, Tiger & Bunny’s Kotetsu) and voice actress Kotori Koiwai (Aikatsu’s Nono, Non Non Biyori’s Renge) will be registered and reproduced, giving anime fans one more reason to not believe everything they see/hear.

Source: Animegaphone, IT Media
Images: YouTube/animegaphone mail

Follow Casey on Twitter, where he once got scolded for unknowingly walking through a hotel buffet line at an anime convention.