Superrealistic face masks by Japan firm attract attention from facial-recognition system developers

Superrealistic plastic face masks produced by a firm in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, have recently attracted attention at home and abroad, from facial-recognition system developers to a Saudi Arabian royal family member. "Look, it makes your heart pound, doesn't it?" The masks -- named Real Face -- are made of plastic resin roughly 1 to 2 millimeters thick. Kitagawa says he came up with the idea of making realistic masks more than a decade ago, when he was developing copy machines at a major printing device manufacturer. "I wanted to make copies of human beings," he said.