YouTubers are recreating GTA 3 animations IRL all over Tokyo

Life emulates art, and nowhere is this more evident than in these YouTube videos of a man walking the streets of Tokyo, Japan as if he were a character from Japan Grand Theft Auto 3. While the movement is strange to a human, it will look familiar to anyone who has attempted to move in a video game programmed with restrictions on how to interact with the world. From the uncomfortably loud footsteps, to the way the man runs in place when he bumps into an invisible wall, to the way computer-controlled characters take punches like a ragdoll, the video is a brilliant parody based on Rockstar’s 2001 open-world game. The Stilted NPC interactions are also a riff on the popular series yakuza

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KOMAZAWA INSULATION is the name of a Japanese YouTube group that creates parody videos of urban open-world games. Apart from hers Grand Theft Auto Shorts, they also made longer videos of it yakuza games and resident Evil. Their videos are very popular in Japan and they have accumulated over 20 million views on YouTube. Although their content is in Japanese, their videos have also garnered worldwide acclaim.

They have been making the GTA TOKYO skits for the past three weeks, with the last one being released in early May 2022. While the cast members spend most of their time running the streets and meeting “NPCs,” the most satisfying part is watching the character encounter objects without actually touching them. In game development, the invisible wall is called a “Collider”. Characters usually hit the collider before touching the object to prevent weird clippage issues from occurring. “Clipping” refers to when one game object goes through another because the computer didn’t render the solidity of one object perfectly. By engaging with them GTA

Physics, it feels like KOMAZAWA ISOLATION is forcing video game logic on the real world.

Corresponding an interview With Japan go!

, Hayaken and Ganso are two award-winning street dancers who film their sketches in Tokyo. Hayaken originally performed the jerky movements for his friends, and they “always burst out laughing.” So he started doing it Grand Theft Auto YouTube videos during the pandemic. He was specifically thinking of skits that could be performed when there were relatively few people outside (due to the coronavirus). The team consists mainly of the duo and a cameraman, but they occasionally have their friends with them as extras.

Hayaken specializes in a dance with lots of stomping, while Ganso engages in a style called “pop dance” that consists of lots of robotic movements. These movements were perfect for capturing the drama of over-the-top but stilted animation of video game characters.

“We want to film Times Square next,” Hayaken said. “We’re just going to make sure we don’t actually get shot.”