cheerleading
Japan has an infatuation with robots; after all, you don’t see beautiful cyborg women hanging out in restaurants in the US or 24-fingered hair washing bots in the UK. That’s why we weren’t surprised at all to find that Japan has just produced a gang of cheerleading robots that dance in sync while balancing on a ball.
In our modern world, with the sometimes questionable motives of our political leaders and the abundance of often conflicting information available online, it’s perhaps not surprising that countries’ armed forces have a hard time finding new recruits.
While the United States Army opted to take a rather gung-ho approach to recruitment by releasing a free-to-play tactical first-person shooter video game in the form of America’s Army, Japan – who, following its defeat in World War II, is permitted only to have “Self-Defense Forces” that remain on Japanese territory – has its own methods of rallying support and enticing potential new recruits. Its latest recruitment drive, for example, is so fantastically quirky that is positively screams “Japan”.
Say hello to the JSDF “cheerleading shout” app that allows future soldiers, sailors and pilots to take selfies and insert them into Mii-like avatars that dance around when special augment reality (AR) cards are scanned.