Japanese Research Lab SACLA Releases Promotional Anime Short

by Wind_Sr
Dec 3, 2013 9:58 AM | 36 Comments

The Japanese research lab SACLA has released a short anime titled "Future Photon Harima Sakura" to promote their X-ray Free Electron Laser (X-FEL), the brightest x-ray source in the world.

As described on her official webpage, the feature character Harima Sakura is a G4-type Picodroid, a living entity with self-learning and evolutionary capability. She can shrink down and dive into the world of atoms, invisible to the human eye, known as the "Pico Universe." Her athletic ability is very high. In cooperation with a variety of researchers and scientists, she explores the world inside atoms with a strong sense of justice.

Video: http://youtu.be/5G64-xD-mnw
Harima Sakura Official Page: http://xfel.riken.jp/pr/sacla/?cat=3
SACLA Website: http://xfel.riken.jp/eng/

Story by HiDefAmp

Future Photon Harima Sakura on MAL

20 of 36 Comments Recent Comments

Haha

Science.

Dec 9, 2013 10:26 AM by VioLink

This was awesomesauce!

Dec 9, 2013 10:18 AM by Naxrrhid

1min won't hurt~

Dec 6, 2013 10:55 AM by Haine

Oh my god. Selling their laser with a mahou shoujo-esque animation?

Only Japan.

Dec 6, 2013 10:27 AM by ChronosXIII

Japan is really awesome!!!

Dec 6, 2013 4:50 AM by Tengai

symbv said:
^ Perhaps it is something worth raising in the Anime DB forum...

Perhaps it is. I'll post in there later.

Dec 5, 2013 1:20 PM by IntroverTurtle

^ Perhaps it is something worth raising in the Anime DB forum...

Dec 5, 2013 1:03 PM by symbv

symbv said:
The official site http://xfel.riken.jp/pr/sacla/?cat=3 even has a manga about how this Harima Sakura project came into being, and a bunch of wallpapers for download, as well as this animation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrz0t2ftyi8 or this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwMhX3TTWzA . Cool!

The narration was done by Noto Mamiko, by the way.

Can those two animations be added to the site and possibly to the first post of this thread? I know at least the second one was made by Mizue Mirai who's already on this site with about 5 other works, which I think that alone should allow it to be added even if it was a doujin animation. Idk about the second, it didn't say who made it just the narraration. But if the company who made the "Future Photon Harima Sakura" short is considered a professional company and is also the one who made those two then they could be added just from that.

Dec 5, 2013 11:11 AM by IntroverTurtle

awful

Dec 4, 2013 8:57 AM by nelsonbrabra

She sounds like a super human to me lol Japan never stops to amaze us.

Dec 4, 2013 6:08 AM by Mr_Gutts

symbv said:
was thinking why you knew who will sing the theme song of the Shingeki no Kyojin live action movie LOL

Yeah, I'm sorry. And I realized late, too.

Dec 4, 2013 1:45 AM by tsubasalover

tsubasalover said:
And the theme song is performed by fripSide... so cool! (I posted this at the wrong news earlier...)

I was thinking why you knew who will sing the theme song of the Shingeki no Kyojin live action movie LOL

Dec 4, 2013 1:33 AM by symbv

And the theme song is performed by fripSide... so cool! (I posted this at the wrong news earlier...)

Dec 4, 2013 1:29 AM by tsubasalover

DraconisMarch said:
Apparently even a research lab isn't above putting marginal fanservice in their promotional anime.

You call that as fanservice?? I guess it is more like you are not above calling everything Japan made in anime as fanservice LOL

Dec 3, 2013 9:05 PM by symbv

This is cool. I wonder what it would be like if our labs made something like this :P

Dec 3, 2013 7:45 PM by fiddle_shnibs

Apparently even a research lab isn't above putting marginal fanservice in their promotional anime.

Thanks Japan.

Dec 3, 2013 7:35 PM by DraconisMarch

holy shit the CGI is darn good i hope they can make an anime TV series out of this

Dec 3, 2013 6:31 PM by deg

Wind_Sr said:
The Japanese research lab SACLA has released a short anime titled "Future Photon Harima Sakura" to promote their X-ray Free Electron Laser (X-FEL), the brightest x-ray source in the world.

More news articles on top of the actual official site:

http://news.ameba.jp/20131203-545/
http://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/articles/1312/03/news138.html

From the articles, the key point of the XFEL laser seems to be that it has the highest resolution (because the laser has the smallest wavelength ever used in the world), not that it is the brightest x-ray source. In fact, SACLA calls itself "世界一小さいものが見えるX線レーザー施設" (the facility with the x-ray laser that is no.1 around the world for seeing small objects". The facility name SACLA is acronym for SPring-8 Angstrom Compact Free Electron LAser, and Angstrom is 10^(-10) meter or one ten-billionth of a meter - according to the news articles above, they managed to reach the shortest wavelength for laser ever achieved in the world: 0.63 Angstrom Å (or 63 picometer or 0.063 nanometer). Even the theme song (sung by fripSide no less) is called "pico scope -SACLA-" while the character design was made by a team named "project picodroid". So the stress about the small size is everywhere.

The first post also does not mention that the anime was made by Kamikaze Douga 神風動画, which mainly works with CG and lists the 2 OPs of JoJo 2013 anime and a couple of music videos and CMs as its main achievements.

The official site http://xfel.riken.jp/pr/sacla/?cat=3 even has a manga about how this Harima Sakura project came into being, and a bunch of wallpapers for download, as well as this animation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrz0t2ftyi8 or this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwMhX3TTWzA . Cool!

The narration was done by Noto Mamiko, by the way.

Dec 3, 2013 5:57 PM by symbv

Pauchok said:
I'll die waiting this.

I'll die waiting YOUUUUU

Dec 3, 2013 4:33 PM by destructo22

Every product get's at least one anime commercial in Japan.

Dec 3, 2013 3:46 PM by Chibi-Alice

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