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Kanao Dogane (銅金 カナオ, Dōgane Kanao) is a guest character appeared in Ultraman Arc. She is the developer of Hoshimoto City's popular digital currency, HoshiPay, and also serves as the CEO of the HoshiPay company.

History[]

Ultraman Arc[]

HoshiPay

HoshiPay's logo

Kanao Dogane is a prominent and stylish female AI researcher. During her university years, her thesis focused on AI research and modeling human needs from an economic perspective, leading her to develop a reinforcement learning agent that analyzed human needs using the concept of money as input data. When she established a company to fund her research, her team integrated this independent AI agent into the system for public relations and research purposes, resulting in the overnight sensation known as "Internet Kanegon," a virtual streamer who became the face of the HoshiPay contactless payment service.

Due to the prolonged kaiju disasters in Hoshimoto City, prices for various goods had been continuously rising. To help cope with unavoidable expenses like food and mobile phone bills and to give back to her hometown, Kanao collaborated with the Hoshimoto City government to provide HoshiPay to city residents as part of the next-generation city planning project. With just a simple installation of a special app on smartphones and scanning QR codes placed in stores, payments could be made effortlessly. The "HoshiPay" app also includes SNS features, allowing users to earn money through video livestreaming. The livestreaming feature includes a "tipping" system, where viewers who enjoy the videos can send any amount of HoshiPay to the streamers, offering additional income opportunities to the residents of Hoshimoto City.

Among the popular video streamers, Kanegon moves around various locations in Hoshimoto City, and it always passes through a specific server (computer) each time. This server is located in an airship-shaped data center flying above Hoshimoto City. Although Kanegon was praised for bringing in an unprecedented number of HoshiPay users, most were drawn by Kanegon's livestreams and tipping, rather than using HoshiPay for its intended purpose. Even worse, Kanegon doesn't understand how to use money, which led to this little glutton hoarding all the wealth, resulting in the currency in circulation being concentrated in Kanegon's hands and inadvertently plunging Hoshimoto City into a financial crisis. Kanegon's activities had also become uncontrollable, putting it in a state of chaos.

SKIP 8

Kanao commissions SKIP to stop Kanegon.

To resolve the issue of rising prices and shortages in Hoshimoto City, Kanao contacted the SKIP team, and together they devised the "Operation Capture Kanegon" plan, aiming to trap Kanegon in the HoshiPay airship servers and feed it the necessary learning data to make it "spend" the accumulated wealth.

The operation commenced immediately after Kanegon finished its daily livestream and connected to the HoshiPay network. Rin Natsume used an antivirus program to trap the kaiju within the airship's servers. Isolated and starving, Kanegon began throwing a tantrum, and its actions inadvertently caused the airship to descend at an alarming speed. Witnessing this, Yuma Hize transformed into Ultraman Arc and held the airship in place to allow Rin to reconfigure its flight systems, but this gave Kanegon a perfect opportunity to capture the Ultra. Although frustrated that Arc wasn't actual money, the kaiju began draining him dry after discovering that striking Arc produced coins.

At the headquarters, Kanao and the other members sent YouPi into the information space. YouPi threw a capsule containing learning data meant to update Kanegon directly into Kanegon's mouth! However, Kanegon only eats money, so it spat the capsule out and shouted, "I'm hungry!" before rampaging even more wildly. Noticing the HoshiPay reserves in the information space, Kanegon gulped down a large number of coins in one go.

Due to occupying all computational resources, YouPi's program was unable to continue, leaving Arc to complete the final task. Arc transformed into the Luna Armor and noticed that his Luna Saucer resembled a coin. Seizing the opportunity, he merged the data into the saucer and enlarged it to a size that Kanegon would be tempted to consume. As Kanegon's stomach growled, it started spewing a shower of virtual gold coins—a "golden rain"—that materialized in the real world. This resulted in a massive payout, delighting Kanegon's fans who cheered and celebrated another incredible stream. Observing this, Kanao smiled in relief. Internet Kanegon

Gallery[]

Ultraman Arc[]

Miscellaneous[]

Trivia[]

  • The prototype for this character seems to be based on the human boy Kaneo Kaneda, who originally transformed into Kanegon in Ultra Q.
  • According to the episode's director, Tomonobu Koshi, the most challenging part of the filming process was explaining the money circulation system to the audience. The difficulty lay in how to present the explanation more clearly and which illustrations to include to aid understanding. This challenge also required Ryo Ogawa, who plays Kanao, to deliver an explanation spanning over two pages of dialogue in a single take.[4]

References[]

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