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Enjoy Your Ramen in Company of AR Girls

Nissin Food Products will release a new line of Cup Noodles you can enjoy in the company of cute girls on September 20. If you hold out your phone with the corresponding smartphone app on towards the "Nissin Raoh" Cup Noodles, the "Raoh" anthropomorphic girls appear. They'll keep you company as you wait for your ramen to be ready and even eat together with you. Yes, eat together with you; the augmented reality (AR) feature on Knowledge Work's "Aug" app simulates adorable ramen eating partners.

Nissin's Raoh noodles boast "Five minutes in hot water, three minutes to eat, eight minutes to seriously fall in love." When you open the Cup Noodle package with the in-app camera on, the 2.5-dimension floating girl appears. In the eight minutes it takes to enjoy the meal, you get to also enjoy the corresponding character striking up conversation and slurping their own noodles alongside you.

The CG motion character performs human-like expressions and displays text in accordance with her dialogue. For the voices, the creators employed "bi-aural recording." The voice actors recorded their lines under the same conditions of cooking and eating ramen.

The line of ramen comes in five flavors personified into five siblings.

• Hatsumi Mendō: Roast pork and soy sauce (Voice: Maaya Uchida )
A fourth-year university student who just finished job hunting. She can be firm but also caring towards her little sisters. Occasionally she'll bolster herself with an inspiring monologue, unaware of those eating with her.

• Tsugumi Mendō: Fragrant rich miso (Voice: Saori Hayami )
A 20-year-old first year college student. A charming girl with "glamorous proportions" but firm morals. She's good at making a living but also good at taking advantage of others' kindness..

• Minami Mendō: Pale broth chicken and salt (Voice: Aya Suzaki)
17-year-old second year high school student. Lately, she's in the middle of a rebellious "tsun" phase with not much "dere". She's a hard worker that hates to lose. She has a side that totally fawns over Tsumugi.

• The Twins Karute & Shino Mendō: thick fatty tuna tonkotsu and seafood tonkotsu with soy sauce (Voices: Risae and Satsumi Matsuda)
Both siblings are 15-years-old and high school juniors. Karute will rant with fervor but her feelings are easily hurt and she'll cry when she loses even one follower on Twitter. Because of Shino's beautiful appearance, the neighbors all assume they are the fifth daughter but...they're a gutsy person without "two sides" to their personality.

Another recent augmented reality project is the upcoming "unprecedented fusion of games and anime" Augmented Reality Girls Trinary (Kakuchō Shōjo-Kei Trinary) app from Toei Animation.

Source: Yahoo! News Japan via Yaraon Blog