ID photo booths now offer virtual boyfriend/girlfriend experience
No boyfriend or girlfriend? No problem. There’s an app for that.
In fact, there are lots of apps for virtual dating in Japan.
But dating sims are so entrenched in Japanese society that they are even now part of ID photo booths.
Such booths, which are commonly found at stations and malls around the country, are quite competitive. You would think they are much alike but different booths offer special functions, like being able to edit and retouch your photos before printing.
ID Vox booths even offer you some companionship during the few minutes that you are taking your passport photos.
The booths have a new mode called “In Love with the Photographer” in which, for a small additional fee, one of six characters (three guys and three girls) guides you through the process like a virtual boyfriend or girlfriend.
Do you want spoilt young guy Haruto? Or tsundere (cold) little sister Arisa? Laidback Ryota who acts like a big brother? Or zesty Nanami who speaks in Kansai dialect? Disdainful hunk Taiga? Or older sister-type Sayoko who you really admire.
The virtual characters are all voiced by two profession actors. The idea is that these characters are the photographer who is taking your snap.
And if you can’t choose from the six, you can try the “matching” mode where you answer several questions and the booth selects your partner for you.
Just don’t get too attached. This romance only lasts as long as you are in the booth getting your ID photos done.
Before we discard this as just the latest wacky Japan story, Sora News 24 makes the astute point that there is a logic behind the system beyond mere marketing gimmick. The ID Vox operator “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.”
If ID photo booths around Japan soon seem particularly busy with lonely customers, this is why!
