Palmer Luckey is an American entrepreneur who happens to be the founder of Oculus VR and designer of the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality head-mounted display. He recently sold the Oculus VR to Facebook for $3 billion USD.
He also happens to be an anime fan who has been hyping up the Re:Zero & anime community as of recent. He tweeted at Re:Zero‘s creator Tappei Nagatsuki to see if there was an opportunity to fund an anime adaptation based on the Re:Zero Rem IF chapters, which branch from different decisions than the ones that the canonical story ultimately took.
Who am I supposed to talk to about funding an anime adaptation of the Re:ZERO Rem IF chapters? I need more Rem in my life. @nezumiironyanko?
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) May 25, 2017
In the past he praised Sword Art Online and has credited the series for bringing the possibilities of VR to a wider audience. He also mentioned that he’s interested in the idea of a virtual game with serious real life consequences.
During an interview with Japanese magazine Mogura VR, he mentioned that the Oculus Rift Kickstarter launched during Sword Art Online‘s 3rd episode, which he credits for bringing extra attention to the crowdfunding campaign. He said, “Many people said that SAO seemed more realistic to them because of the existence of Oculus. Because Oculus’ existence VR didn’t feel like it was 20 or 30 years away. Many people thought that VR is going to become real in the near future.”
In the same interview, Luckey praised the Sword Art Online movie, Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale, for its depiction of mixed reality technology and thinks that’s the future AR tech should head toward.
If you’re curious about what type of anime series he enjoys, he responded to reddit community questions and he mentioned that he is a fan of Code Geass, Death Note, Kill la Kill, and Log Horizon.