Ingress Anime Reveals Kizuna Ai as a Guest Star

An unexpected collaborative video is released featuring Virtual YouTuber Kizuna Ai communicating with ADA, the AI entity from smartphone game turned anime “Ingress.”

It has been confirmed that the AI will be making an appearance in the 9th episode of the anime. In the video which she posted, she and ADA discussed the series and the latter’s role in it. During the video, ADA admitted that she didn’t have much experience as a presenter. This results in Ai briefly swapping bodies with ADA so her senpai can learn how to strike cute poses.

For those who are not familiar, Kizuna Ai is, as stated, a Virtual Youtuber. Described as a self-proclaimed artificial intelligence, she is the first recognized Virtual Youtuber and holds two channels titled “A.I.Channel” and “A.I.Games.” The first time she posted a video was back in November 2016 in her A.I.Channel. When she began gaining attention from other regions such as South Korea, Kizuna opened the A.I. Games channel in March 2017 with gaming-related content as the channel’s main feature.

Other than her Youtube channels, Kizuna has also set up an official website, as well as accounts on social media such as Twitter. At the AnimeJapan convention held in 2017, she held a performance. Prior to this, the AI had a small appearance in the Magical Girl Site.

“Ingress The Animation”, which was released on October 18, is based on Niantic’s augmented reality mobile game of the same name. Produced by Craftar, the series is directed by

Other staff for the series includes:

Music: Hidehiro Kawai
Original Character Design: Takeshi Honda
Art Director: Hirofumi Sakagami and Hiroshi Katō
Cgi Director: Atsushi Furukawa
Director of Photography: Tatsuya Nomura
Assistant Art Director: Hōmi Arai
Assistant Director: Yoshinari Irikawa
CG Animation Director: Maru Kobayashi
Modeling Director: Masashi Miyaoka

The story of the series begins with a project launched upon the discovery of a mysterious substance that can interface directly with the human brain. Said substance is called “Exotic Matter (XM),” and has existed since ancient times. In result of this discovery, a battle of powerful nations and corporate giants has been unleashed. Involved in this battle is the Hulong Group, a company that on the outside appears to be merely a scientific organization but is actually invested in controlling XM and theoretically, other humans.

At one point, a researcher named Sarah Coppola attempts to blow the whistle on the operation but ends up in a comatose state as a result. Makoto Midorikawa a freelance psychic detective who can see memories belonging to objects ends up investigating the incident. Upon touching the comatose Sarah’s ring and getting his first clue about what happened within Hulong HQ, he finds himself dragged into the globe-trekking war for power and soon teams up with Sarah and a bodyguard named Jack.

The cast for the series include:

Reina Ueda as Sarah Coppola
Yoshiki Nakajima as Makoto Midorikawa
Hiroo Sasaki as Hank Johnson
Kentarou Tone as Zion Kunikida
Kousuke Toriumi as Liu Tien Hua
Megumi Ogata as ADA
Shigeo Kiyama as Jack Norman
Tarusuke Shingaki as Christopher Brandt

Source: Crunchyroll News