Enjoy Kobanashi with December.
~From the Monosus morning assembly~

As we approach December, the town is becoming lively. Many people are probably making fun plans for Christmas and the New Year. Members who have big jobs to do towards the end of the year are working hard today as well, imagining "themselves during winter break."

It's a morning when the air has turned completely wintery. When I arrive at the office, I warm up by listening to the "words" of the morning assembly. A day at Monosus starts with a little chat between executives, department heads, and leaders, who take turns talking each day.

This month we will be introducing a little bit of it on the Monosasu website.
The guests are Sakamoto, leader of the marketing department, Kawaguchi, leader of the quality control department, and Onogi, head of the design department.

So, let's begin "Quote of the Day"...

I tried playing in VR

The other day, I went to a VR experience facility in Shinjuku ( VR ZONE SHINJUKU ).
Bandai is open for a limited time, and I had been wanting to go there once, so I went with three friends to experience it.

Once inside, you can put on a VR headset and play games in virtual reality, experience high altitudes, and do a variety of other experiences. There are all kinds of attractions, such as experiencing the Kamehameha wave from Dragon Ball and playing Mario Kart from the driver's perspective.

I tried the "Kamehameha" and when I put on the headset and entered the virtual space, my three friends were in the same space and we could talk to each other through the headset. We each chose our own master from Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, and Krillin and learned the Kamehameha from them, but my friend who chose Piccolo as his master didn't get any stronger, so I thought Piccolo was no good (laughs).

And I thought it was more interesting than I expected. Of course it wasn't as good as Disneyland and the quality varied, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Also, watching the staff was interesting. It was also helpful to see how they explain how to use VR to people who are experiencing it for the first time, how they convey how fun it is, and how they think about how to convey that, and how to present it.

I think that when you actually experience it, you can really feel the fun and possibilities of VR through your own body. If there is anything that catches your eye after seeing or hearing about it, I hope you will try it out for yourself.

What does the other person want?

I like clothes, so I often go to shops, but when I pick up an item I like and look at it in the mirror, a salesperson comes over and starts talking to me. The sales talk they give me is often subtly different from what I want to know.

What the store clerk wants to tell you: ・Brand trivia (what's great about this brand, etc.)
・Topicality and popularity (celebrity XXX was wearing it)

What I want to know: Can I mix and match it (will it go with my existing clothes)?
・How to care for it (Is it easy to care for on a daily basis?)

The store clerk was trying his best to explain things to me, but it wasn't what I wanted to hear...I felt a bit strange, and it occurred to me that maybe I do the same thing at work.

When I interact with various people at work, am I able to converse with them while accurately understanding what they are looking for? When I think about it, I realize that I still have a long way to go.

It was an incident that made me think that it would be good to approach work in this way, while accurately catching what the other person wants and thinking beyond what they want.

Learning from Tezuka Osamu

I once watched a TV program that featured Tezuka Osamu's work. He was so famous that he was called the "God of Manga," but he also worked on anime and had an incredible amount of serializations. How did he manage to do so many things that would normally be impossible? To do so, he went through repeated trial and error to speed things up...the program introduced his work methods.

Specifically, I created a huge collection of human body parts by drawing different pictures for each character's facial expression, angle, and limb movement, and lining them up. The assistants were able to draw the characters by tracing them, so that's how we divided up the drawing work. I thought this could be used on the web as well.

I just had a project to create a large number of character illustrations, so I tried the Tezuka Osamu method. I made various parts of the character and combined them to create the illustration, but each member had some parts that worked well and some that didn't, so I found it difficult.

This time, the collection of parts was not as huge as that of Osamu Tezuka, so it is important to make it more thorough so that it can be completed with just the collection of parts, but conversely, it may be necessary to give a thorough lecture on how to make it and then let each person finish it with their own originality. I would like to understand the feelings of the members who receive the template and work on it, and explore better methods.

Well, have a great day today.

A VR experience, impressions from a clothing store, learning from the god of manga... This month too, we have a selection of "Kobanashi" that exude the individual characters.

So, what kind of stories will come out tomorrow?
It's so much fun.

Well, have a great day everyone today.