About
Movie Thief (Japanese: 映画泥棒, Eiga Dorobo) is a nickname given to a Japanese promotional character for anti-piracy. Since after 2010, the camera-headed guy has been a popular subject for parodies or fan works which are filled with a suggestive atmosphere though he’s a wholesome mascot for public service announcement.
Origin
In 2007, Movie Thief was born for an awareness-raising campaign for anti secret filming in theaters. This campaign titled “NO MORE Movie Thief” (NO MORE映画泥棒)[1] has been run by “Let’s Go to the Movie Theater” Committee, an agency formed for awareness-raising activities by Japanese movie industry organizations, and it’s scheduled to end in 2015.
As of 2014, “NO MORE Movie Thief” has been changed 2 times in 2010 and 2012 for covering the revised copyright laws. The common plot in this series is a camera-headed man tries filming with dancing strangely and gets warned in a quite serious tone. In addition, he gets arrested by a police man with a red patrol lamp on his head after the 2nd version. And because there is no mentioning to the proper name of that camera-headed man, Camera Man (カメラ男, Kamera Otoko), he became to be called as “Movie Thief” among viewers. In a similar vein, the antagonist is known as Police Man (警察官 or 警官) or Red Lamp Man (赤ランプ男), though his official name is Patrol Lamp Man (パトランプ男, Patorampu Otoko).
Spread
Regardless of good or bad, Movie Thief has high visibility among Japanese people because they have to watch his strange dance every time before movies begin in theaters. His reputation in the early days was actually not so good. However, partly due to its atmosphere changing into more comical and cheery throughout the revisions, he became to a familiar character in moviegoing with people getting accustomed to him.
Meanwhile, the online fandom for Movie Thief began growing rapidly in 2010, which was mainly driven by Fujoshi or female otakus who get “Yaoi” inspirations from the relationships of him and Patrol Lamp Man who was added to the series in that year. Therefore, most of fan illustrations for Movie Thief in the Japanese illustrator communities pixiv[2] and Nico Nico Seiga[3] are drawn by female users with a flavor of homosexual love. And Movie Thief parody videos on the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND) are mainly hand-drawn animations or Miku Miku Dance covers, both of which are particularly popular among female users.[4]
Additionally, doujin comic books for Movie Thief has been published on Comiket or other Doujin events since 2012, and even a doujin event[5] dedicated to Movie Thief has been held annually since 2013.
Cover Art of the 1st Doujin Anthology Comic
Official Merchandise
“Let’s Go to the Movie Theater” Committee initially received the popularity of Movie Thief negatively because the committee considered the character as an evil incarnation of piracy in public service announcements. In fact, a secretary general of the committee told a newspaper in 2010 that they declined all merchandising approaches for Movie Thief as well as offers to him from TV shows and other commercial media.[6]
However, the committee changed its policy, Movie Thief began to appear on the media in 2013. In January 2013, a Japanese dance performer O-ki[7] revealed his role in the camera-headed guy and performed his famous dance in a famous lunchtime live TV program (shown below, left). Then December of that year, TOEI, a Japanese movie company which is participated to the committee, finally started to offer the official partnerships for Movie Thief merchandise.[8] Under this license, figures[9], T-shirts and small toys[10] for Movie Thief have been released since after February 2014 (shown below, right).
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On July 1st, Movie Thief launched his official Twitter account for a promotional campaign for moviegoing in the summer vacation season.[11] This account had earned more than 40000 followers within the first few hours, and the number of followers had increased to near 90000 in the first week.[12]
It’s no doubt that that large online fandom supports the establishment of the official “Movie Thief” business. However, the official has ignored it and never mentioned about it.
Notable Examples
Videos
Niconico 映画泥棒でハガレンopパロ【手描き】Niconico 映画泥棒で攻殻opパロ【手描き】
Left: Fullmetal Alchemist Opening Parody | Right: Ghost in the Shell Opening Parody
Niconico 映画泥棒がコーラを振るだけじゃなくなった【手描き】Niconico 進撃の映画泥棒【手描き】
Left: X Shakes Cola | Right: Attack on Titan Opening Parody
Illustrations
Search Interest
External References
Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos/illustrations listed in this section.
[1]Wikipedia – NO MORE映画泥棒 (Japanese)
[2]pixiv – Search results for the tag 映画泥棒
[3]Nico Nico Seiga – Search results for the tag 映画泥棒 (Japanese)
[4]niconico Douga – Search results for the tag 映画泥棒
[5]Official Site for “Movie Thief” Doujin Comic Event (Japanese)
[6]TOKYO Web – 東京新聞:劇場ＣＭ ビデオカメラ男 映画を盗撮 “悪の化身”:放送芸能 / 04-30-2010 (Internet Archive, Japanese)
[7]crank-in.net – 「映画泥棒」の中の人、正体が判明！「笑っていいとも！」でダンスTV初披露 / 01-28-2013 (Japanese)
[8]TOEI.co.jp – 「ＮＯ ＭＯＲＥ映画泥棒」映画館でおなじみのキャラクターが、ライセンシー募集を開始！ / Posted on 12-26-2013 (Japanese)
[9]Anime News Network – Anti-Piracy "NO MORE Movie Thief" Mascots Get Full-Scale, Posable Figures / 02-07-2014
[10]Laughing Squid – ‘No More Movie Thief’ Action Figures Based on a Strange Japanese Anti-Piracy Ad Campaign / 01-22-2014
[11]Twitter – 映画泥棒（ことカメラ男） (eigadorobo) / Launched on 07-01-2014 (Japanese)
[12]web R25 – 映画泥棒Twitterが大人気 / 07-03-2014 (Japanese)