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Matsudo City Uses Moe Character for Warning Poster (Updated)

Chiba Prefecture's Matsudo City has developed a new crime prevention poster featuring a 9-year-old moe girl. In the illustration, Ai Ichijou tries to prevent the older men from falling for remittance fraud, a type of bank transfer scam. This depiction marks Matsudo and the Chiba Prefecture police's third collaboration with pixiv artist Nanaroku ("76") to create a crime and safety poster.

Incidents of remittance fraud in Chiba Prefecture increased by 225.5% from September 2010 to this September. The alliance of crime prevention organizations in Chiba hopes these posters will help curb the problem.

Matsudo will print 5,000 copies of the posters in two sizes, and they will be posted on town and neighborhood council bulletin boards, at banks throughout Chiba Prefecture, and at other public facilities around Matsudo. A real-life version of Ai will also appear and perform a skit at a public safety event in Matsudo on December 3.

In June, Nanaroku drew a police-style magical girl poster for Matsudo's crime prevention patrol campaign. The artist also illustrated a traffic safety poster with a moe policewoman for the city in September.

[Via Yaraon!, ITMedia]

Update: The poster warns older men from falling for remittance fraud, not from committing it. Thanks, simona.