Yuki Terai in Virtual Hawaii

Look at the cute 3D waifu! Now look at the real life old man on a bench. Now imagine them kissing. Is that doing anything for you?

Do you want to watch her eat shrimp? You better, dimwit. Yeah, eat that shrimp girl~. Now focus on the sign advertising Miller Highlife.

Yuki Terai was a (popular?) virtual idol at the turn of the century. She is a cute girl that does cute things and sometimes vaguely idol-like things in virtual spaces. Sometimes her character is used for short stories, from horror to scifi. I can understand all of this. "Yuki Terai in Virtual Hawaii", however, threw me ... for a loop.

(Disclaimer: I watched this raw and I am far from fluent, so it's possible I missed some important details. I doubt it though)

First of all, "Virtual Hawaii"... huh? That didn't seem like a "Virtual Hawaii"; it looked like a Physical Hawaii to me. This ova was a sort of series of candid videos of Hawaii in the year 2001, with Yuki Terai digitally imposed in them. A fun idea that mostly just looks silly in practice. Add in random B-roll of old men sitting on benches and it turns somewhat unintentionally amusing.

Sometimes the way she is inserted into the footage is far from flawless, such as when she goes parasailing from the back of a speed boat. The level of artifacting displayed in that scene is on a level not again seen until the birth of purposefully deep-fried memes in the mid 2010's. Truly ahead of their time.

What I found amusing was, in that same scene, we get a few shots from her perspective down towards the boat pulling her. In those shots we see a man with his hands over his face, possibly holding a camera (can't quite tell, 480p simply wasn't enough). Who is he? Is this the camera man, Takashi Motohashi? Is it Takashi or Johnnie? I see you for who you are; I know this was just an excuse to go to Hawaii you hacks! And who is this "James Levey" doing the "lighting". Bruh, it's a 3D model, you don't need lighting! I'm about to report this blatant embezzling of company funds to Frog Entertainment Co., Ltd, a company that definitely still exists. They you'll be sorry.

In the end she T-Poses into glowing fairy dust at the edge of a digital field of neon flowers overlooking Tokyo while my brain is subject to a psychic bombardment from all of the Japanese teachers I've had over the years, ridiculing me for not understanding her dialogue. Is she dead? Is life not worth living now that she's back from beautiful Hawaii? Truly tragic, my heart bleeds for her.

3/10, I found it slightly amusing.