Can you
imagine turning on the TV to watch the usual police drama and suddenly finding
yourself with a virtual waifu? Well, Law & Order: Special
Victims Unit has just made history. In its most recent episode, the
legendary series decided to get fully into the world of streaming and
internet personalities. But what left the otaku community open-mouthed
wasn't the plot, but the level of respect. Instead of making a cheap and stiff
parody, the production hired professional artists from the medium to create a
2D model of the highest quality.
A
psychological drama in the middle of live
Chaos
breaks out in episode 16 of season 27, titled Vivid. The story
introduces us to Jaded_Ember, a popular VTuber played
by Sarah Desjardins, who in the middle of a live broadcast confesses to having
recovered the memory of a sexual assault thanks to an experimental therapy.
Obviously, her fandom goes crazy and they end up vandalizing
her ex-boyfriend's car. That's when the Special Victims Unit comes
into action. The investigation takes a super dark turn when they discover that
the clinic administering psychedelic drugs to him is a complete mess of medical
malpractice. A classic script of the franchise, but perfectly adapted to the
digital age.
Absolute
respect for content creation
What really
stole the plaudits was the visual design of the character. Traditional
television often tears apart internet culture with terrible animations, but
here they did the whole homework. The avatar was fully rigged,
managing to capture super-fluid expressions and movements during on-screen
broadcast scenes. This was achieved because they brought in two real-life
professional model creators to build it. Seeing big-budget TV finally treat
the virtual entertainment industry with this level of
authenticity is a giant step toward legitimizing the format in front of the
masses.
