Hatsune Miku Illustration Competition by METI

PIAPRO(ピアプロ)|経済産業省事業「たんすケータイあつめタイ＼(^o^)／」×ピアプロコラボ via kwout

To promote recycle of "rare metal" which is often used in mobile phone, Japanese Ministry of Economics, Trade, and Industry(METI) had a competition of Illustration of Hatsune Miku collaborating with a illustration sharing site named "PiaPro".

on 22th of January, they announced the illustration of winner's gathering in video with music made by Hatsune Miku. updated on YouTube official page of METI. you can see this video from below.

Hatsune Miku is a Vocaloid and its character which is popular amongst Otaku people in Japan.(wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid)

the campaign of "recycle rare metal"is called "Tansu Keitai Atsumetai＼(^o^)／（たんすケータイあつめタイ＼(^o^)／）"meaning "wanna gather cellphone in your drawer which is not used". this campaign gives 5000yen of money coupon for 158,800 people by lot.

たんすケータイあつめタイ 平成21年度使用済み携帯電話の回収促進実証事業 via kwout

Japanese government sometimes does this kind of attempt because they think Japanese Otaku culture is welcome and popular in outside Japan (and Otaku culture is thought to enlarge economic size). that's why Japanese government is using this kind of culture.

Japanese Otaku is also welcome this kind of attempt to spread the Otaku culture around the world.

I think this is good movement to spread Japanese culture. But i think there's more to spread in Japan like just a culture of food, way of living, university students'... Otaku culture is probably easy to make it a character of promoting some event or campaign.