User:DOSGuy/Danny Choo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Danny Choo (born 1972[1]) is a blogger and the founder of Mirai Inc., best known for his exploits as a Star Wars Imperial stormtrooper exploring and dancing in the streets of Tokyo. As of March 2008, Dannychoo.com is ranked among the top 10,000 most visited websites in the world.[2]
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[edit] Career
Danny Choo was born in 1972 in London, England, where he spent time as a shoe designer working for his father Jimmy Choo before deciding to study Japanese and Korean at London University.[1] After graduating from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, Choo joined Japan Airlines as a computer engineer for just over a year. After being employed by Nature Japan, he relocated to Japan in 1999.
Since then, Choo has remained in the Internet industry, serving as Website Manager on the management team at Amazon Japan (Tokyo and Seattle), and as CGM (Consumer Generated Media) Product Manager at Microsoft for Live.com.
In 2007, Choo incorporated his own company named Mirai Inc., which "focuses on delivering CGM SEO solutions and platforms to Japanese enterprises".[1]
[edit] Dannychoo.com
Danny Choo hosts a popular blog devoted to Japanese popular culture, focusing on anime, anime and manga-based figurines, photographs and videos of Japanese "idols", Gundam, Otaku, and related events and conventions. The blog features content in both English and Japanese.
The site has been online since August 2000, but its popularity surged in early 2006, around the time that the first Stormtrooper video was uploaded to YouTube. Another significant increase in traffic occurred in 2007, around the time of the first Tokyo Dance Trooper video, pushing its traffic rank from around 40,000th at the time, to almost 5000th in the world as of March 2008.[2] Page views for July 2007 was over 10 million served to over 50,000 unique users per day.[1]
On September 13, 2007, Danny Choo was a panelist at Imprint 2007 at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy in Los Angeles, California.[1]
[edit] Stormtrooper Videos
[edit] Origins
On July 24, 2005, Danny Choo purchased an Imperial stormtrooper costume on eBay and blogged of his intention to wear it in the streets of Tokyo.[3] Over the next year, he posted pictures and video clips of himself wearing the costume in public and visiting businesses in Tokyo. On September 24, 2006, he uploaded a video of himself wandering the streets of Tokyo in the costume to YouTube, which has been viewed more than 11,000 times.[4] A second video, filmed in Yokohama, reached a similar audience.
[edit] Tokyo Dance Trooper
On June 30, 2007, dannychoo.com and kirai.net co-produced a video called Tokyo Dance Trooper, in which the stormtrooper dances in an intersection in the town of Akihabara in Tokyo during a red light, as well as in a subway car and on a sidewalk. The video has been viewed almost 750,000 times.[5] A blog entry about the video became the most popular entry on the Official Star Wars.com Blog,[6] and Lucasfilm mailed Danny Choo to tell him that they enjoyed the video. Danny Choo was later invited to a "YouTube Mix" in Omotesandō, Tokyo, where he met YouTube co-founder Steve Chen.[7]
The following month, a second co-production featuring Darth Vader as a second dancer was uploaded, which has been viewed almost 300,000 times.[8] In October, a third video was filmed in Shibuya, Tokyo, featuring dance scenes at popular landmarks Hachikō Crossing, Shibuya 109, and Center Gai, as well as footage of the Dance Trooper at the YouTube Mix in Tokyo. The video was posted on the Official Star Wars.com Blog[9] and has been viewed more than 700,000 times. Two more recent videos have brought the total views for the series to over 1.8 million views.
[edit] Popularity
The popularity of Star Wars and the breadth of memorable characters has made the franchise a popular target for parodies in television and film, as well as fan videos. Although YouTube videos featuring dancing stormtroopers preceded Danny Choo's videos by at least a year, the most popular videos have been viewed between 30,000 and 80,000 times, despite appearing in "Related Videos" and searches for Danny Choo's videos.
Tokyo Dance Trooper videos are notable for being filmed in highly public locations, such as busy Tokyo intersections, as well as the spontaneous reactions of passersby. People appearing in the videos sometimes dance with the Dance Trooper, take pictures, or shake his hand. While a dancing stormtrooper would be an unusual sight in any urban setting, creating and wearing highly accurate costumes depicting characters from Japanese popular culture has become a significant subculture in Japan known as cosplay. This may partially explain the willingness of witnesses to participate, and the overall popularity of the videos.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e [1] Imprint 2007 list of speakers
- ^ a b [2] Alexa traffic page for Dannychoo.com
- ^ [3] Stormtrooper Armor
- ^ [4] Stormtrooper in Akihabara
- ^ [5] Tokyo Dance Trooper
- ^ [6] Original Tokyo Dance Trooper video on Star Wars.com Blog
- ^ [7] Tokyo Dance Trooper in Shibuya
- ^ [8] Dance Vader
- ^ [9] Tokyo Dance Trooper in Shibuya on Star Wars.com Blog
