Miku Corolla Revisited

Hey, it's just over a week since NY Anime Fest 2012! (I AM NOT calling it Comic Con!)  Thus, I won't be covering the events of the con, because:
One-I'm not the journalist type;
Two-I did not have a press badge;
Three-I hardly attended many major events;
Four-I'm not a damn journalist!
Parenthetically (aka BTY) Peter Tatara won't return my emails, and I will consider that Five.





So, dispirited from the results of my previous post, I did a little google ditty, and through info gleamed from pages not updated in the last year, it seems that I have to download an app, mundanely enough called the "Toyota Shopping Tool".  At the least, that's what should've happened for me when I sent the text.

I swear, officer, those apps aren't mine...

Since no one under their 50's isn't interested in purchasing a Toyota (well, other than a Prius, really) the only interesting thing this app features is this Toyo Tag feature.

Stupid Japan its addiction to invent unnecessary proprietary format.

Touch that, and a reticule emerges:

Fox Two armed ready!    Locking on target....   orZ

...which allows you scan Toyota related stuff.....like scan the information post aside a displayed Toyota vehicle to get information.
There were other features, but I didn't give a damn, as I'd rather be strapped to a chair, eyelids tied back, and forced to watch the entire "Initial D" series (yes, the movie too), than buy a (non-2003-2009-Prius) motor vehicle with the brand Toyota.

Now,under the deception I had the proper tools this time, I did my best not to quiver while holding the phone, and there was a click, and I activated that unnecessary proprietary system.
Success!.......so I thought.

 Did this app just tell me to download itself?

And such is what appeared before me.  Could it be possible, my little paradise?

 I didn't even care to take the effort to "Photoshop" this.

As tempting as this screen looked, the inanimate was triumphant.  I fruitlessly rubbed my fingers across Miku (I fully intended to have that sound wrong), hoping some hidden link was hidden in the image, that would lead me to my goal.

And all it did was jiggle a bit.

This is an actual screenshot on the "Toyota Shopper Tool" page.  From the looks of it, one SHOULD assume that the app would provide a little AR Miku Concert.  

Fake advertising got me agin'!

Also, it says so on the bottom.

Though this was a deavistating blow to my struggle to see something cool, I AM determined to yield some sort of result out of this.  I SHALL peruse even deeper into my googling.  

Do not contemplate failure!

Sooo...check back soon, y'all

Itasha cars for the U.S.? DA-MÉh!

Now, I understand my first post is extraordinarily late and some of you may have already gotten wind of this already, but since no one reads this blog, I have nothing to apologize for.  Still, I really wanted to post this like, two months ago. (ED: be about a year now...)

I presume most of you types who might stumble across my little feed would not deny that the popularity of foreign Anime and Manga is growing in the U.S., evident by the fact that nearly 100,000 people attended the 2010 New York Comic Con, and perhaps some wandered into the coinciding Anime Festival con running somewhere in the basement.  Despite this possible fact, it had no doubt this culture remains obscure in its own niche and has yet to reach the American mainstream conciousness (my Funimation channel is still dubbed, so I never watch it).  ( -_-)

That is until the 2011 4th of July weekend.

If you planned to drive from geologic Long Island to the West Side (...or perhaps, say, New Jersey (e_e')(;e_e)...) that day, and are a cheapstake, more than likely you took the Queensboro Bridge to get into Manhattan.  So, as I was doing so, approaching the Van Dam St/Queens Blvd intersection, I noticed a familiar figure on the billboard, mounted on the 7 Train El.

As with most days, I had my camera on me and the confidence to take photos from a moving car during rush hour:

Lo and behold, to my very delight, I saw an advertisement featuring a certain Hatsune Miku on prominent display!  As my excitement grew, and one knee on the wheel, I fiddled with my camera to get better shots.

As I couldn't really pull my car over without being ticketed at the time, I didn't get a picture from an ideal angle for a photographer.  Yet, since I was at a red light, I think captured everything relevant.



For some reason this picture is the clearest,
despite the next shot being closer in.

Stupid consumer enthusiast camera and its superfluous settings

Now for those of you who've already opened up a new window after seeing that URL, with the frenzied excitement that itasha cars are finally becoming prominent in the U.S........

I'll save you the time of disheartening you, in advance.

What you link to (still up, surprisingly, as of 10/09/12) is fundamentally a website of publicity in the field of advertisement.

Zounds! What a price for a 2011 Corolla!

This vehicle lacks a special kind of paint job.

Pretty much a few Youtube videos and......tweets (if that's current moniker for text posts) I guess.... all existing to PROMOTE a 2-year old (whoops) Corolla.  An occasional link to Facebook that still can't comprehend how to operate.  And the videos pretty much suck.  

(Sorry.  I can't get excited only for nor truly understand the franchise that is Vocaloid.  It's not even anime/manga, yet it is somehow associated to anime/manga...
...but I shouldn't stray into that whole deal...)


The only items of real significance are was a sweeps to win tickets to the Miku concert at Anime Expo using Twitter, such contests which never pan out for me anyways.  I can't even travel to California.
(Well, I guess you still can watch some of it.  And also some Toyota commercials.)


All that's legitimately gets me going is this AR thing. (For those without a Nintendo 3DS yet, that's Augmented Reality....just google it).  Take a picture of this:

instruction fail

, text  it back, and something cool is supposed to happen.  Except it didn't.  Might have to do with my idiot ApplePhone to take 7 meg photos as the only option which're too large to be even sent over text.
Really.

Assuredly....indeed....nothing of importance.

Sorry for annihilating your hopes.

So, in conclusion, I guess if you really want itasha cars over here, you'll have to do the effort yourself at a vehicle decal service.  That also applies if you buy a plastic model, cheapskate.

(Another tidbit: this billboard is actually directed towards Chinese, not your presumably Japanese demographic, as one might think.  No explanation given)
(Really, trust me on this, even though I've severe disabilities in reading Chinese, there's no 'no' [の] character that's like in EVERY Japanese sentence.  The Chinese equivalent 'de' is used instead.  Also, everything is in Kanji.
If someone could translate that for me, I'd thank you.)