Earlier in the week we brought you images from a Buddhist temple in Thailand that has a mural featuring scifi characters like Neo, Bumblebee from Transformers and even Anakin’s podracer. Today comes video from Japan of a 16th century Buddhist temple trying to hip up its image by going after the otaku. They’ve created an anime character mascot, and even hire a girl to cosplay her in public to do recruiting. In fact the monks actually PRAY to a statue of the character, who is modeled after the Shinto goddess of art and wisdom. And they’ve created some kind of hideous video gamey jingle that I suppose appeals to the part-cyborg youth of modern cyberpunk Tokyo.
The new campaign began in 2009 with anime-inflected ads and signs; apparently kids have been taking their pictures in front of the signs and they’ve turned into a pop phenomenon. Japan.
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