“We all need a bit of escapism sometimes, and there’s nothing like a blast from the pop-culture past to do the trick,” says Google, and we’d be inclined to agree, particularly under the current circumstances. To help you escape the daily drudge a little more easily, Google’s been coming up with some cool AR toys, and has now added a handful of famous characters from Japanese games, shows and anime to its AR search function.

Google gets geeky

The feature is pretty simple to use, and works on both iOS (running iOS 11.0 or higher) and Android devices (so long as they’re running Android 7 plus or are ARCore-enabled devices). You just need to head over to either the Google app or an Android browser, plug a featured character’s name into the search bar, and then hit the “see in your space” option. Hey presto! Now you’ve got a pop-culture icon on your desk to distract you from work. Thanks, Google.

The list isn’t all inclusive, but you’ve got 14 big names to work with, those being: Hello Kitty, Pac-Man, three Ultraman varitations, Gomora, EVA-01 from Neon Genesis Evangelion, three classic Gundam frames, Cogimyun, the drums from hit rhythm game Taiko no Tatsujin, and Pompompurin.

Google also provides some pretty cool data regarding the popularity of each searchable character. Apparently Pac-Man wins out substantially globally, followed by Hello Kitty. Apparently the country most interested in the little yellow dot-gobbler over the past five years was Peru. Who knew?

Aside from bringing these characters to life, you can also use the AR characters to create AR videos, so feel free to recreate Gomora and Ultraman’s epic battles, or pit Hello Kitty up against a Gundam if you want to. Why not, right?

Source: The Verge