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A32 FEATURE
Friday 22 September 2017
AP Interview: Japan’s emoji creator saw nuance in pictures

By YURI KAGEYAMA choices for pictures and
AP Business Writer animation, such as Apple’s
TOKYO (AP) — The tiny latest Animoji, Kida said.
smiley faces, hearts, knife- Unlike Kurita, Kida finds it
and-fork or clenched fist sad Japanese lose out on
have become a glob- opportunities to reap ben-
al language for mobile efits of their innovations on
phone messages. They are a global scale due to lack
displayed in the Museum of language skills and inter-
of Modern Art in New York. national influence.’
They star in a new Holly- Yuka Kubo, a researcher
wood film. at the University of Tokyo,
The emoji is heir to a tradi- is working on a book about
tion of pictographic writing how young Japanese
stretching back millennia women pioneer innova-
to Egyptian hieroglyphics tions such as selfies and
and the ideograms used use of emojis as art that are
to write Chinese and Japa- ridiculed but become hits.
nese. “The young women are
Despite their ubiquity, they expressing their rebellion
started in 1998 with one against the adult world,
man: A 25-year-old em- but in a playful way,” said
ployee of mobile phone In this Sept. 14, 2017, photo, Django Co., Ltd. Director Shigetaka Kurita speaks during an interview Kubo.These days, Kurita
carrier NTT DoCoMo who at his office in Tokyo. works on a popular live vid-
created the first set of 176 emoji an immediate hit “Japanese tend to excel has yet to be shown in Ja- eo streaming service called
in one month as he rushed in Japan, where the de- at making the most of limi- pan but was modestly pop- Niconico. He believes such
to meet a deadline. mands of courtesy make tations. It’s a nation filled ular in the United States. services will become more
“I happened to arrive at for a complex art and a with limitations, a small In 2010, the 12-by-12-pixel interactive, building online
the idea. If I hadn’t done tiny mistake can prove piece of land,” said Kurita. designs were adopted communities, possibly with
it, someone else would costly. Emoji combines the “We do well at carrying out as a global standard by artificial intelligence.
have,” said Shigetaka Ku- Japanese for “picture,” or tasks within a framework, the Unicode Consortiums. Kurita doesn’t feel all that
rita, who now is a board “e’’ (pronounced “eh”), rather than being given a That means any phone or involved with emoji to-
member at Dwango Co., and “letters,” or “moji” free hand.”Western play- operating system that fol- day because they have
a Tokyo technology com- (moh-jee). ers Apple and Google lows the standard will use evolved beyond his origi-
pany. Kurita collected common made emoji a global the same images, making nal set. He receives no roy-
Kurita’s challenge: NTT Do- images including public phenomenon.“Perhaps them a universal language. alties and is little-known in
because of the popular-
ity of the iPhone, Apple’s
art style for its emojis also
became extremely influen-
tial, to the point that when
most people think of emoji
imagery, they’re thinking
of Apple’s take on it,” said
Jason Snell, a tech journal-
ist and podcaster.
Kurita shrugs that off. The
dozen-member team de-
signing i-mode was making
something for Japan long
before smartphones.
“Japanese always are too
ahead of our time,” said In this Sept. 15, 2017, photo, Yasuo Kida, a technology expert
In this Sept. 15, 2017, photo, Yuka Kubo, researcher at the Uni- Kurita, an unpretentious who was involved in the adoption of emoji as a Unicode stan-
versity of Tokyo, speaks during an interview with The Associated man with a quick smile. dard, gestures during an interview with The Associated Press in
Press in Tokyo. Tokyo.
Associated Press “I think Galapagos is OK. Associated Press
It’s cool,” he said, refer-
CoMo’s “i-mode” mobile signs, weather symbols, the ring to the remote Pacific Some initially opposed Japan outside technology
internet service limited zodiac and comic book- Island, used in Japan to making emoji a Unicode circles.
messages to 250 charac- style pictures such as a light describe the nation’s insu- standard, according to He paid his own air fare to
ters, which cried out for bulb or a ticking bomb. larity. “After all, how can Yasuo Kida, a technology New York last year to see
some kind of shorthand. With simple lines, he made Japan hope to win as a expert who was involved the Museum of Modern Art
A message that said, five faces — happy, an- global standard?” in their adoption.Among exhibit, which cited him
“What are you doing gry, sad, surprised and “And so we go ahead with the arguments: emoji was by name.Kurita was over-
now?” could be menacing perplexed. The heart and our Galapagos ways in Ja- mere pictures, too infantile come with emotion.
or nosey, but adding a smi- a smiley face are still his pan, and people abroad and uniquely Japanese. “There they were, some-
ley face softened the tone. favorites.Some visuals tran- will see it as wonderfully But Kida said companies thing I’d been involved
“Digital messaging was just scend culture. A drop of Japanese.”Kurita’s inven- that saw Japan as an im- with, although I’m neither
getting started, and so I sweat rolling down a cheek tion inspired “The Emoji portant market won out. an artist nor a designer,”
was thinking about what means exasperation or Movie,” an animated film What began as primitive he said. “The museum saw
was needed,” said Kurita. anxiety. Others confuse: A by Sony Pictures about digital drawings is growing value in the design that
Following i-mode’s launch camcorder was misread emojis that live inside the into an elaborate tool for had the power to change
in 1999, that nuance made by many as a fish. world of a smartphone. It communication with more people’s lifestyles.”q