FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Entertainment

Attraction: An Interactive Browser-Based Anime Film

Sure, it’s also part of a French anti-smoking campaign, but don’t let the moral undertones keep you from experiencing this stellar cinematic experiment.

Attraction is an interactive browser-based film with a highly stylized anime aesthetic. By connecting with your webcam and Facebook profile, it invites users to play an active part exploring Tokyo in the year 2040. You’ll follow three friends across six chapters of the comic book-like story, receiving prompts along the way to help direct the characters in their adventures via motion or color recognition with your webcam. The use of webcam interactivity to control the action—opening doors within the story or weaving in and out of large groups of people—creates a bodily experience many experiments in participatory cinema typically lack.

Advertisement

Although not immediately evident, the film is actually an anti-smoking promotion commissioned by the French organization, The National Institute for Prevention and Health Education (INPES). But the film manages to elude the dreaded “after-school special” cheesiness through its surreal visuals and immersive storytelling techniques. We’re sure it also didn’t hurt that cult legend Koji Morimoto, the animation director for the landmark anime Akira, served as the film’s director.

Here’s a sneak preview at what the film experience holds, but you’ll want to visit the web-based version to test it out for yourself here: