Toei Animation, one of Japan’s most prestigious anime studios, has launched its ONN’ON STUDIOS venture and plans to host its first-ever “Watch Party” on VRChat.
The parent company has produced some of the top animations in the world, including the hit series Dragon Ball, Transformers, Digimon, Sailor Moon, and many others.
Under its new studio, the collaboration with Sony will debut in the virtual world ‘Nostalgia1999,’ which features concepts from a Japanese six-tatami room from July of the same year. Fans can view the messy Otaku character with Sony’s world-renowned anime shows.
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Let’s watch 90’s anime together on VRChat!
Toei Anime Watch Party🎉
＼<Date>
10:00 pm on Friday, 24 February 2023 PST
<Program>
Screening of Digimon Adventure 1st and 2nd Episodes
<Screening at>
“Onnon_Nostalgia1999”https://t.co/LoYaSGFUGGcheck out the details below👀 pic.twitter.com/XErTrDK36l
— ONN’ON STUDIOS｜オナノンスタジオ (@Onnon_Studios) February 20, 2023
Otaku refers to young Japanese people who obsessively collect items such as computers, popular culture items, and other fan-related activities.
At the watch party, visitors can view anime films from its 1990 lineup via a digital recreation of Sony’s Trinitron colour television KW-28HDF7. Attendees can join the viewing as an avatar and interact with digital assets.
Hiromi Seki, a co-creator of the widely-celebrated Digimon Adventure and Magical Doremi series of animations, will join the viewing. She will also present an exclusive video explaining the story behind the titles.
Seki joined Toei Animation in 1985 and was promoted to TV Planning Manager in 2008. The company later promoted her to the Supervisor, Planning, and Development at its Sales Headquarters in 2012. She is the Producer, IP Strategy Division, and Planning Department at the company’s Sales and Planning Headquarters.
The event will host six VRChat anime party instalments on Fridays from 24 February to 31 March on the VRChat virtual space. The initiative comes amid a major push from the Minato City, Tokyo to develop immersive use cases for its gaming technologies and extended reality (XR) tools.
Sony-Epic Games Immersive Content Deal
The news comes after Sony plans to expand its solutions for the future Metaverse. It plans to leverage its knowledge of serious gaming technologies to develop infrastructure for the spatial communications platform.
Sony has also partnered with Epic Games, one of the top RT3D gaming engines used to develop XR content. The partnership will build on its announcement from mid-April to invest $1 billion USD in the Cary, North Carolina-based firm.
Several of its targeted use cases include developing platforms to socialise, game, and collaborate, it said in a recent corporate strategy briefing in May last year.
Kenichiro Yoshida, Sony’s Chief Executive, said at the time that his company aimed to cultivate a culture of ‘Kando,’ which allows users to create spaces based on emotions and feelings.
Sony also plans planned to partner with Manchester City Football Club (MCFC), similarly to a recent collaboration between the football club and cryptocurrency platform OKC.
Sony Buys Beyond Sports for Metaverse Events
The Japanese tech giant also acquired Beyond Sports for roughly $70 million USD in late November to expand its portfolio of Metaverse sports solutions. Beyond Sports develops real-time 3D (RT3D) animations.
The new creative tools will allow Sony to leverage Beyond Sports and Hawk-Eye Innovations technologies to develop content for tennis, baseball, basketball, and football events. This includes ball tracking at sports games for the National Football League (NFL) and National Hockey League (NHL).
It will also recreate pitches with digital twins and RT3D players at matches to display stats, scores, and updates. Fans can also receive digital assets on their PlayStation consoles with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and blockchain-based goods. Sony expects to roll out its PlayStation Virtual Reality 2 (PSVR 2) platform later in February.
