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bunraku

Kabuki stagehand taxi service starts, offers silent cab drivers that’ll give you a story to tell

With their drivers’ faces hidden, these taxis are a peek into Japanese theater culture.

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Japan National Bunraku Theater turns Terminator poster into ad for traditional puppet show

It’s quite the summer of 90s nostalgia at the movies this year. Just this past month we had a new Jurassic Park movie, an original Pixar movie, and next month is bringing us the latest Terminator outing in the form of Terminator Genisys.

Anticipation for the film has been high in Japan, but one group you may not expect to be fans of machines killing each other seems to have taken a special liking to it. The Japanese National Bunraku Theater took the poster for the Terminator movie and transformed it into an advertisement for their traditional puppet theater, making it one of the most confusing yet oddly satisfying collaborations we’ve ever seen.

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Opera AOI blends the old and the new with vocaloids and bunraku puppets

The use of vocaloids, artificial singers programmed on a computer, has created its own niche in online art. Thousands share their individually crafted songs using one of the dozens of synthetic voices available posting them to sites such as Niconico for the fun and entertainment of all.

Their popularity has risen to the point of vocaloids getting adopted by highly acclaimed musicians and artists. The figurehead of vocaloids, Hatsune Miku, has collaborated with Louis Vuitton, Lady Gaga, the Japanese Self Defense Force’s Central Band, Pharrell Williams, and Isao Tomita to name a few.

This time, however, artificial performers of the present will be merged with artificial performers of the past in Vocaloid Opera AOI with Bunraku Puppets. I love it when a name perfectly explains what something is so I don’t have to, so let’s get right to looking at trailer for this human-free opera.

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