In the homeland to anime and manga, it was bound to happen. Japanese "magic photo booths" offering real-time digital facial transformation have become all the rage.
Purikura ("print club") machines, Japan's wildly popular photo-taking sticker booths that can add crazy touches like a hat or cartoon or a border of flowers, have undergone a technological upgrade.
In just a few seconds, they can now transform a face into a caricature of itself, instant plastic surgery minus the cost.
The changes, said to up one's "cuteness quotient," appear blandly formulaic and not particularly attractive, although this hasn't blunted their appeal. Dark hair is uniformly reddened, blemishes are erased and skin tone lightened (the "marshmallow" effect), the face and nose are slimmed, and, most noticeably, the eyes are enlarged and tinted blue.
Competing machines provide slightly different options,
but are really just clones of one another...
APSG Comment: ...as are the images they produce. (Note: The video we posted here was taken offline by its owner, but many others are available.)
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