Every morning, half asleep, I watch TV news vacantly. But once the weather forecast begins, I get wide awake to gaze at the weather reporter. Why are they all so charming?
Otenki Casko no Weather-desu (お天気キャス子のウェザーデス。) is an app for weather reporter fans like me. The weathercaster in this app is an anime moe character, "Otenki Casko."
Don't underestimate this as a mere moe app as it contains a lot of practical functions. Not only you can get the weather information of your location using GPS, but you can also check the weather of other areas either by tapping on the map or by address or place names.
Once you choose a spot, it immediately pulls up information from the server. While it displays the weather, temperature, wind condition, and rainfall, Casko reads them out for you. I found it unexpectedly useful when doing other things.
As you can broadly choose areas on the map behind Casko, it is easy to get the weather information even when you do not have a good knowledge of the place.
By the way, though I have called the weather reprter "Casko," she has a proper name: "Shizuku Hatsuka." The surname "Hatsuka" means "early summer" in Japanese, while "Shizuku" means "dew" or "droplet".
At the official site lists further details about the character: Seventeen years old; Clearheaded; Always pretending to be calm; Jealous, and so on. Some characteristics may come as a surprise considering her appearance, but I feel familiar with her all the more.
As the publisher of this app sets up Shizuku's character and background really elaborately, it is not surprising that she has a younger brother. In addition, they have their own Twitter accounts.
According to the official site, the character designer is Hataike Hiroyuki. It explains why I thought Shizuku looked familiar. If you do not know of him, you should check his other works.
This app is currently in open beta, so you might find it unstable sometimes. But as the updates are coming frequently, the problems are decreasing.
What new features will it have? Will Shizuku be a next popular moe character? I am looking forward to the development of this app.
Device used: EVO WiMAX(ISW11HT)
OS: 2.3.4
Version: 1.12
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Publisher: LMD
Last Updated: 10/24/2011
Price: Free
Compatibility: Android 2.2 or higher
Translated by Ryota Kasai