Hasta La Gadget!

Shoppers passing by Shinjuku’s Isetan department store cannot have failed to notice the two festive fairy tale-themed window displays. People standing in front of the display see their own image on the TV screen behind the glass, but with all sorts of colorful additions – green trees, animal faces, candles…The augmented reality animation superimposes around the person’s face and moves in real-time with them.

Called, in glorious Jinglish ‘How to Make a Wonder Christmas’, on the homepage there are also down-loadable screensavers, widgets (below) and even mobile phone graphics: follow the story on the interactive website (below right) to get the QR code to download the latter.

Continuing Japan’s love of all things Scandinavian, the illustrations are by Finnish designer Klaus Haapaniemi. Head to Shinjuku to try it out first hand, but only until December 25th. Spot the hordes of kids in front of the window and wait your turn!