• 3 days ago
These artists are reimagining the flags of over 80 countries ... by turning them into anime characters.

This is the World Flags project.
Transcript
00:00A lot of young people reacted on Twitter, and they loved our character.
00:05People from, let's say, the embassy contacted us.
00:08They wanted to collaborate with us.
00:10This is what World of Warcraft is all about.
00:18We first created this website in which all those characters were displayed, and we created
00:24music.
00:25We are now creating a story based on characters.
00:27We are trying to create games eventually.
00:29The purpose behind this project is to facilitate understanding of different cultures.
00:35Just like Olympic Games, it's important to get united.
00:39It's important to promote cross-cultural understanding.
00:43We wanted to make it catchy so that people get interested in it, and people will pay
00:47attention to it.
00:48That is why we created this samurai animation manga character.
00:52We were able to appeal to a wider range of audiences, like the younger generation, and
00:57people outside Japan as well.
01:11Samurai's history and image is pretty well-known to a lot of Japanese people.
01:16We have a basic understanding of what samurai is, where samurai lived, and what kind of
01:22personality and culture samurai had.
01:38The armor design was also different depending on the region and the era in the history of
01:44Japan.
01:45There were diverse kinds of samurais in our history.
01:50We have an infinite design and idea if we choose samurai as a theme.
02:02In Japan, it's like an Asian society.
02:04There are a small number of young people, and a lot of people are over 65.
02:09It's hard to find common topics in conversation, but when it comes to manga and anime, it's
02:13easier for us to have communication between us.
02:16That is why manga and anime play a very important role to connect intergenerational audiences.
02:40Even outside Japan, people watch anime and manga content.
02:44Japan is the center of anime and manga culture.
02:47Historically, Japan is the anime Hollywood, I think.
02:50Live-action Hollywood is in the United States, and Bollywood is in India.
02:53In Japan, we have anime and manga.
03:10We usually have an interview with people from that country before making a character
03:16to make it authentic.
03:18It's very difficult to represent all the country's elements in one character.
03:23There's a different understanding of Japanese culture, even among Japanese people.
03:27There are many opinions about Spain's character.
03:30There was some criticism about Marigold, so we have a discussion to make it better and
03:34correct that aspect.
03:36That happens all the time, but we are happy to answer those requests as much as possible.
03:42We have no intent to stick to the original design, to be honest.
03:58We didn't aim to create this project for Olympic Games, but now is a great timing for a lot
04:03of people to understand different cultures and different countries' backgrounds and so on.