Movie “Hypnosis Microphone -Division Rap Battle-“was a work that clearly demonstrated what kind of location Japanese cinemas are now becoming. The film is Japan’s first “interactive film” (from the official website) as a theatrical film where “the winner of a rap battle is determined by the votes of the audience,” and it is designed to be determined from a total of 48 routes and seven endings, depending on the votes of the audience during the screening.
To explain again, the film is a film based on the Music-based Media Mix Project, which began in 2017. A series of 2 TV anime series has been produced in the past. The story will involve six teams made up of members from each region, the Ikebukuro Division, Yokohama Division, Shibuya Division, Shinjuku Division, Osaka Division, and Nagoya Division, and the winning team will take on the final battle with the “Love Party” that holds power. In other words, this work is made up of a series of songs, and its essence is not a feature film, but a film concert (film concert) similar to “Idolish Seven the Movie: 4-bit BEYOND THE PERiOD.”
Previously, there have been works that have the same philosophy as “leading the development to the audience.” In the Kamen Rider Ryuki special program, which aired in 2002, there were attempts to decide which of the two final scenes to be broadcast, such as by viewers’ phone voting. However, this is only a branching scene.
On the other hand, there have been works with names such as “interactive films” or “multiple ending movies” for some time now. However, these were mainly things to enjoy on gaming platforms and PCs. This is natural considering how to prepare an “interactive” mechanism and that “interactive films” are essentially an adventure game that uses videos. However, in this case, the focus is on the fact that the individual player (= you)’s choices are more important than the majority vote of the audience, and that “everyone gives different entertainment experiences.”
Looking back at the history of interactive cinemas, we can clearly see how innovative the system in the film Hypnosis Mic, in which “at the cinema” and “majority votes of those present” influence the development (an exceptional presence was a 20-minute movie called “Mr. Payback: An Interactive Movie,” which was a system that used a CAV recording laser disc, and the joystick installed in the audience allowed the audience to vote).
