Daito Manabe of the Rhizomatiks sits and chats with Perfume

Innovation World Era is a show which airs on J-Wave, which has a rotation of 4 hosts who all work in creative fields, one of the whom is Daito Manabe, founder of the Rhizomatiks. Daito Manabe will be known to Perfume fans as the whizz behind all of the crazy tech and some of the visuals which features as part of their performances. So of course it made sense to have Perfume on the show as a guest with Daito as the host.

The entire thing is obviously in Japanese, and at time of writing, there are no captions nor translations. I have no idea what is being said, as I don't understand Japanese. The only parts I caught were.

• Daito Manabe mentioning the "Laser Beam" choreo. I think it was about him learning it, as he often posts videos to Instagram of himself trying to learn Perfume's routines.
• Projection mapping. Obviously.
• "Spending All My Time". I'm assuming they were talking about the performances which involved the projection mapping and the motorised dresses, which the Rhizomatiks designed.
• Something about the "Story" performance at SXSW. Of course.
• Kashiyuka doing a 1000 piece puzzle during down time at home.
• A discussion on the livestreamed debut performance of "Fusion".

Hopefully a Perfume fan will translate the entire thing, or the official Innovation World Era channel will provide English YouTube captions, because it seemed like a pretty candid conversation by Perfume standards, and it's rare that Perfume sit and shoot the shit with members of their creative team.

For those of you who understand Japanese, enjoy! It sounds like a really fun interview. Perfume seem completely at ease with Daito, which is a nice insight into the relationship that they have with him, as there isn't much footage of them together behind the scenes and interacting.

Perfume remain fascinating given that there is so much about their process and how their shit comes together that we just don't know. But Daito himself is equally fascinating. His work with Perfume is only one of his creative and technological outlets. He's done shit for Nike, Dr Marten, Björk, held exhibitions, done talks. He also does a lot of work with Perfume's choreographer Mikiko for Elevenplay; a dance troupe whose performances incorporate much of Daito's tech wizardry. A lot of the time the crazy shit you see Perfume do has been done in some form with Elevenplay prior. He really is amazing. He has an official website where you can read all about what he does and see his work, including some stuff for Perfume that you may not have seen before or even knew he had anything to do with.

🎙️ Listen to J-Wave Innovation World Era: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts

📝 Perfume album reviews: Game | ⊿ | JPN | LEVEL3 | Cosmic Explorer | Future Pop | The Best "P Cubed"
🔊 Playlists: Perfume Pussy Poppers | The Rest "P Cubed"
🎛️ Remix: Nananananairo (featuring Khia)