Japan’s new ID photo booths give you a virtual boyfriend/girlfriend, tsundere included

Dating sim/photo booth hybrids feature a variety of anime lover archetypes, voice acting.

Japan is famous for how many vending machines it has, but it also has a high density of photo booths. We’re not just talking about the purikura/sticker picture booths you find in arcades, either. It’s easy to find ID photo booths at shopping centers, train stations, and other places in Japan, since a lot of paperwork, such as job applications, and legal documents, require you to submit them with a printed, non-digital picture of yourself.

Because there are so many ID photo booths, operators try to differentiate themselves from each other. Some boast about giving you extra chances to review and reshoot your photo, while others promise camera technology to smooth out blotches in skin tone. But there’s only one brand of photo ID booth that provides you with a virtual boyfriend/girlfriend while it takes your picture.

Kyoto-based company Precison’s ID Vox photo booths, as the “Vox” part of the name implies, feature voice guidance to walk you through the steps of taking your photo. Usually this is done with a standard, customer service representative sort of tone, but as of March 1 you can select the newly added “In Love with the Photographer” mode and add some flirtatious romance to the proceedings with the help of anime voice actors.

A total of six characters, three men and three women, are part of the service, all aligning with anime archetypes.

▼ Spoiled younger man Haruto: “I’m gonna take a beautiful picture of you! …so look only at me, OK?”
Tsundere little sister-type Arisa: “It’s not like I want to take your picture or anything…but we’ve gotta do what we’ve got to do, so I’ll take the best picture of you that anyone ever has.”

▼ Laidback and friendly big brother-type Ryota: “I’ll do all I can to draw out all of your beauty! You look so lovely in every shot…”
Energetic Kansai dialect-speaking girl Nanami: “All right, all right, take some of the tension out your shoulders and relax. I’ll make ya look handsome in this shot!”

▼ Haughty hottie Taiga: “Hey, you got me here, so just settle down already. For just this moment, you belong to me.”
Capable older sister-type Sayoko: “I won’t lead you astray, so do exactly what I tell you to. You’re not nervous, are you?”

Despite the variety of personality types between them, the six characters are portrayed by a total of two performers, with Yusuke Shirai voicing the men and Rika Tachibana the women.

There’s actually more to the In Love with the Photographer idea than the entertainment factor, as Precision hopes that the dash of romance will put a genuinely happy expression on user’s faces when the picture is snapped, avoiding the nervously hard or awkwardly forced expressions that so often make people unhappy with their ID photos.

Character availability will rotate throughout the year, with updates to be posted to the ID Vox official Twitter account here. Some machines will also include a “matching mode” where your photographer is selected for you based on how you answer a series of quick questions, further blurring the line between photo booth and dating sim.

A nationwide list of ID Vox locations can be found online here.

Source, images: @Press
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