It appears that Sony is being accused of ripping off original works of art through its latest music video which has now been taken down and made private. The video from Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Asia released a music video that shows off a line-up of titles for PS4 from Winter 2019 and into 2020. The video, as reported by Gematsu, features Tanaka, who has previously worked with Boku no Lyric no Boyomi.The video mostly featured clips from popular video games such as Jedi: Fallen Order, FIFA 20, Death Stranding and numerous others. However, in between these clips, there were animations to transition between the clips. These animations are the issue as numerous comparisons are being drawn to attention on social media.Catsuka, a website focused on animations, tweeted out a video showing numerous animations being played next to the PS4 video. You can find the Tweet embedded below.
As you can see from the video, which has been edited to only show the animation transitions and not the video game clips, there are incredible similarities. The number of animations that are similar is quite vast as well. Animations and artists referenced in the above clip are Steven Universe, FLCL, Last Word (Oleg Kositsyn), Vincent Chansard, Mailed It (Gobelins), Jocelyn Charles, Lune of Atlantis - Moonlight (Souviens Ten-Zan.
People have been calling Sony out for using the original artwork to create their own artwork, however, people have speculated that Sony would have hired freelancers. However, they also state that if the art has been used without permission then Sony appears to have overlooked any forms of checking.
According to Akiba Souten, the animation director behind the PS4 Yume no Naka e music video is Kevin Bao. To further add to the weirdness, Bao's Instagram account has gone private, while his CONNECTION account has...gone. A Twitter user also noticed a previous video from Bao which also seems to rip off a "Live with YouTube Gaming" animation.
Sony has removed the video but seems to have not issued any statement surrounding the comments against them as of yet. Of course, they're more than likely investigating, which also doesn't really seem like a good look either. If they had permission to reference the animations then they'd have no reason to take down the video. That's my view on it at least.
While the original video has been taken down, a re-upload of it has been put up, so if you want to watch it you can do so by going here. I don't know much about the "Yume no Naka e" song, but fellow writer, Iyane Agossah is happy to explain for us, so I'm going to hand you over to him!
Iyane: The song used in the video, Yume no Naka e/Into the Dream, is a classic Japanese song by YÅsui Inoue. Born in 1948, YÅsui Inoue is one of the most popular singer-songwriters of Japan and he's still active today. Yume no Naka e is most notably popular among anime and game otaku as the song often gets covers in these medias. The most popular cover being the version in classic anime Kare Kano directed by Hideaki Anno (Evangelion).
Yume no Naka e's lyrics also have a peculiar story behind them. as they reference the time when police officers searched YÅsui Inoue's home for drugs. The lyrics mention the search: "What is it you're looking for? Is it hard to find? Even though you've searched in my bag, my desk and yet couldn't find anything. Don't you want to try
going into a dream instead?"