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Yuki Terai is a vivacious 17-year-old who lives just outside Tokyo. She loves strawberries, music, surfing the Net and photography. In most ways she is every bit the typical teen, except she doesn’t exist.
Move over Britney! On 26 August 2002, a brand new teenage heroine will be making her UK debut as Escapi announces the VHS and DVD release of ‘Yuki Terai – Secrets’.
The invention of computer animator Kenichi Kutsugi, Yuki Terai is Japan’s No.1 Virtual Star. As one of the country’s most recognised “celebrities”, she has enjoyed a phenomenally successful career that has encompassed everything fromhosting award shows and appearing in TV commercials to releasing hit CDs, videos and DVDs. Not to mention a best-selling coffee table book of her modelling shots.
In Japan, Virtual Stars are a true phenomenon and Yuki Terai is the definitive megastar. Light years away from conventional cartoon figures, these computer-generated characters are given life by means of impressive, state-of-the-art animation techniques.
Capable of unprecedented life-like expressions and movement, they feature in their own worlds: real-life, science fiction, and music – the permutations are endless!
In ‘Secrets‘, the multi-faceted Yuki is showcased in six diverse short stories. In Fly Away Alone, she plays a sensuous night club songbird; Dos/Chin, which also happens to be the name of her mischievous robotic dog, finds Yuki exploring her artistic side; A Life is a sombre art-house piece, void of dialogue and partly told in flashback as Yuki reflects on happier times; In fully fledged Matrix mode, Comet The Thief stars our idol as a mischievous high-kicking thief who utilises a ferocious display of unarmed combat to achieve what she wants; The Mirror is a somewhat eerie episode which explores the darker side of Yuki asshe is mysteriously followed by images of herself that seem to emerge from within the mirrors; and in the final story, Lazy Gui, our scantily-clad heroine embarks on a race against time as her Space Freighter is set for self-destruct.
As a special bonus, ‘Secrets‘ contains the music video of Yuki Terai’s smash hit song, My Dearest You. Additional extras include ‘The Making Of…’ which explains the techniques and tricks used to create the ground-breaking, computer-generated animation that gave life to this virtual megastar.
Escapi has two more technical phenomena scheduled for later in the year.’CyberVenus Fei Fei’ is a stunning vision of perfection who is createdon-screen right before our very eyes whilst ‘Virtual Stars’ showcases some ofthe virtual world’s best loved stars doing what they do best.
DVD Details:
Cat no: HRE001UKD
Release date: August 26th 2002
Cert: 18
Running time: 65 minutes
Price £15.99
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.