The Story of Mino, the Girl by the Woods, and Kusano, the Painter of the Woods
"My name is Kusano, and I live in Linbian, and right now I work at a game company in Taipei." In real life, the long-haired Kusano speaks simply and without much expression, just like any ordinary anime fan. But the "Linbian Girl" Mika, who leaps out of Kusano's computer, has big, watery eyes like the seawater of Linbian, and youthfully calls out, "Welcome to Linbian." Asked whether he really likes Linbian that much, he said: "It was only after going away that I wanted to go home that much XD"
Anime plus rural areas? Illustrator hopes to give development a stage
Simon Creative Marketing Co., the company that originally created the Kaohsiung Metro Girl, later also launched Lost Little Ma in Wanchin, Early Summer's Cherry Blossom of Donggang and other virtual characters to help market Pingtung County. The current Simon team has even partnered with Lin Qingyuan, a farmer who won the Shennong Award and once promoted eagle-friendly red beans, to launch the "Dongjin Moe Rice" brand of rice.
Yang Jiayu, social media marketing planner at Simon, stressed that character settings must make meaningful connections with the place and its specialty products and meet market demand. In the case of Dongjin Moe Rice, the product, Kaohsiung No. 145 rice, was anthropomorphized into "Sui Ji," and a four-panel comic was made to explain the variety and fertilizing methods, overturning ordinary consumers' imagination of agricultural product marketing.
However, Yang Jiayu also said that opportunities for cooperation only arise because they meet farmers like Lin Qingyuan who are willing to collaborate in many ways. Kusano believes this is also the dilemma currently faced by illustrators. Whether it is farmers' associations, communities or government agencies, their concept of "art design" still remains at traditional painting; they do not understand the anime field at all, and even think anime is too lowbrow for serious occasions, causing submitted works to be eliminated and leaving no stage on which to emerge.
Even so, he still does not give up on the idea of returning to Linbian to create and set up a studio. "I want to first make Mika into a life-size standee and put it at Linbian Station." That way, outside visitors will immediately connect Mika with Linbian, and local people can also have an imagination different from traditional landmarks such as statues or "Welcome to Linbian Township" signs, while he tries to find farmers' groups willing to have Mika as their spokesperson.
When asked what exactly he likes about his hometown, the inarticulate illustrator suddenly transformed into the cute Linbian girl and said: "The fresh air of the riverside park, the warm human touch found throughout the township and the joyful, leisurely time, drinking tea under the banyan tree, strolling at Linbian Junior High School, and playing along the coastline, fishing and catching fish by the riverbank, children playing hide-and-seek in the old alleys - there's quite a lot XDDD"