VOCALOID Technical director at Bandai Namco talked about Komachi & said some interesting things about her reception in the west

[Exemplar]

It was a pretty wide ranging interview. It touched on topics about Unity/VRM, incorporating her into some AI projects, character design and what he thought about her reception overseas was pretty interesting.

Here's what he said mechanically translated (i'm sure someone else here would give it a better translation)

VRon- Last year there was not much topic about VTuber, but what do you think about the relationship between VTuber and Mirai Komachi?

Takahashi- Mirai Komachi does not have any plans on VTuber at the present time, but a place where Japanese game companies and companies making content create overseas content "What is the Strength?" I wonder if there is a place to know .

Because Japanese characters are not quite coming out of Europe and the United States, let's make characters steadily with their strength, that is a good year as a movement of last year. In addition, it was unexpected that when I gave it to Vocaloid , "I heard that a new one appeared in Vocaloid after a long time", it was more likely that I reacted from the overseas Vocaloid community than we thought .

Second, rather than spreading in Europe and the United States as VTuber, it is a promising aspect that development is going on in areas where content consumption is close to that of Japan (for example, China and other Asian countries ) On the other hand, as these characters and technologies come out more rapidly from Asia (region) , I think that it is important in 2019 that ... ... so that it will not be overtaken

There's also a part one of the interview but it's focused on their mocap system 【新春スペシャル】それからのシーグラフ（1・バンダイナムコスタジオその1）

 

[uncreepy]

I finally got around to reading the 2nd part of this article, because Mirai Komachi's website finally updated its banner to have a mini slideshow of her 3D model on it! (It was New Years theme for a long time.) Yeah! Go check it out: BANDAI NAMCO Studios Inc. Miraikomachi

Apparently, they updated her 3D model in December to have more polygons, so it would look good on both the big screen for tech demos and on smart phones for real-time usage which they predict will get popular for VTubers wanting to make content. It seems like they might be ready soon to release her 3D model to the public (it's been listed as "coming soon" on their website for several months, though), it is definitely going to be VRM format using Unity because of the VTuber boom. They basically want people to help spread awareness about Mirai Komachi, they know many people still don't know about her and think this will help. They have no plans to make her into a VTuber, though.

Remember that Mirai's purpose is to explain behind the scenes tech stuff. She has existed since 2016. They said that they wanted her to be a bit different from their established IP in terms of character design, and wanted her to be more for introducing tech rather than being an idol and more "onee-san" than "moe". They also wanted her outfit/design to work well in motion and seem like an informational character wearing the Bandai Namco colors. They had a contest within their visual artist department to figure out her base design. The final design for the box art was made by a Namco Bandai employee who designs for God Eater and Code Vein, Kurumi Kobayashi.