Singapore Cartoon Characters Come to Life on Japanese Mobile Handsets

PRLog (Press Release) – Feb 19, 2008 – Mediafreaks Cartoon and Character Farm – both specializing in the creation of original animated content and cartoon characters - have entered into a collaboration with HI CORPORATION of Japan - a Japanese company specializing in real-time 3D rendering engine (MascotCapsule® ) for mobile phones and a wide variety of other devices - to release a set of cartoon characters from the animated series Katakune and Sedo Dog to be offered as digital pets in Japanese mobile handsets.

The first mobile phone to sport one of the cartoon characters called Mono Dog from the Sedo DogTM series is the high-end Sharp SH905iTV.

The cartoon characters will be used for a service where users can set characters to display on their mobile phone standby screens, menu screens, and other screens. The character moves around the mobile phone screen and reacts according to events such as incoming calls, mails and text messages.

HI CORPORATION’s MascotCapsule® - an embedded 3D rendering engine that supports this service - has been widely adopted worldwide by being embedded into the handsets of four of the top five overseas manufacturers. The engine was shipped in a record number of embedded devices other than cellular phones, such as home appliances like video camcorders, reaching 3 million devices as of September 2007.

Aldric Chang, Founding CEO of both Mediafreaks Cartoon and Character Farm, says, "We are grateful and excited about the collaboration with HI CORPORATION as this marks a unique entry into Japan for our original cartoon characters. The prospect of our characters 'living' in so many mobile phones is exciting and we look forward to seeing how the Japanese market will embrace Singapore's brand of 'kawaii (cute!)' characters."

Eisaku Takahashi, Director of HI CORPORATION Singapore Pte Ltd says, “We are certainly pleased to be working closely together with Mediafreaks as we find great potential in their creative contents. HI CORPORATION would definitely be looking forward for more opportunities together in the future.”