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Tokyo's Bridges Reimagined as Pretty Boys in Hashidanshi PR Project

Last December, the movie company Shochiku, Tokyo's Water City Creative Partners, and MOVIC announced the Hashidashi, a boat transit PR project that reimagines Tokyo's bridges as attractive guys. The companies hope that by creating characters based on the metropolis' bridges will encourage more visitors to check out Tokyo's waterways.

There are four characters thus far and each centers on a different theme like "theater," "fireworks," "art," and "animals." The first four bridge boys are Azuma, Umaya, Komagata, and Ryōgoku based on the Azumabashi bridge, Umayabashi Bridge, Komagata Bridge, and Ryōgoku Bridge. All of the bridges cross the Sumida River at various points.

Four different artists designed the characters for the project. Nuo designed Azuma, Hinatsu designed Umaya, Bekko designed Komagata, and SUZ designed Ryōgoku.

The staff have already enlisted voice acting talent for two of the characters but in what capacity is currently unclear. Shōya Chiba will voice Azuma and Toshiyuki Someya will voice Ryōgoku.

There's a wide world of "danshi" projects with various levels of success. The Unko Danshi asked fans to pick their favorite poo and Font Danshi manga reimagines Japanese typographical fonts. There have been multiple projects blending attractive guys with alcohol and even Pocky and 7-Eleven introduced their own take.

Source: Hashidanshi official site via Nijimen