So you can see one Tama home CM in that video, here is a new one where they prove my point and replace Tama Hooooooome with chirashi (flyer, as in the damn flyers I get shoved in my mailbox everyday):
Two things remain constant: My love of the dorama TRICK and the willingness of Japanese celebrities to appear in commercials. These combine into the embedded videos below, two of which star Nakama Yukie.
First we have a tricky cup noodle CM, which came out in time to promote the new movies this year:
Here we see Yamada utter a variation on her famous line "I see what you did there!" (I may have changed the nuance on that line a bit ;-):
And no, I can't tell you how something made out of wheat and hops is different from beer.
And next an ad for the DS game. I need to get that.
First off, if you don't know the Heidi (ハイジ) Nissan commercials, go here. And if you don't recognize the animation as being from the same studio that did Golden Eggs, well... we can't be friends.
Today's post is about a song from a discotheque established in Tokyo in the decadent 90s. Wikichan says,
Juliana's, also known as Juliana's Tokyo, was a Japanesediscothèque that operated in Shibaura, Minato, Tokyo[1] in the early 1990s. It was famous for its dance platforms, on which office ladies dressed in "bodycon" (abbr. (wasei-eigo): "body conscious" (ボディコン,bodikon?, "sexually flattering clothing")[2][3]) clubwear would congregate, as amateur go-go dancers (professionals were also employed).[4]
Apparently, Juliana's had a techno mix that was so overused it remains locked in the Japanese consciousness to this day. It's kinda the Japanese equivalent, in terms of moronic techno that we can easily recall, of the Mortal Combat song. Here 'tis (I recommend only about 30 seconds of this stuff):
And here is a Heidi commercial featuring it:
The word they use in the CMs is 低燃費 (low fuel consumption). If you aren't technoed out, DJ Ozma has a pretty funny take on the song too that you can see here.
Um so Jamiroquai has what to do with noodles and polystyrene? Who cares? Throw a few Japanese lyrics in at the end of the CM!
Bah. Youtube is bragging that Boingboing already featured this. I'm the only person on earth that doesn't read that blog. So this post, like all of them, are for the biggest market share of my readership (my own two eyes).
You thought bringing that song back to pimp noodles was odd? Try an 19th century book. From the 80s CM vault, I give you Tom Sawyer, who I didn't even know made it across the cultural divide.
Toy Story 3 is coming out soon I hear (I'm not clear on these things, they just pop up in my iMac's previews).
Somebody made one of the characters from the movie seem real with a fake commercial allegedly from 1983. They've even gone as far as to make a Japanese version, but the ruse becomes evident for me when I see their cartoon shot in this video. 1980s anime didn't look like that at all. Still, interesting promotion campaign.
Lately the animators of Eggs have been trying their hands at various famous characters. For instance, there is Heiji (Heidi) selling cars and appearing on bags.
Among Japanese models and actresses, Yu is, to me, the ultimate girl next door. For one thing, she doesn't seem trim her eyebrows. When you've seen as many butchered brows as I have, natural ones start to look pretty good. Her fashion and makeup are also very understated.
But speaking of eyebrows, in this video she provides the voice for Golgo 13, hardened womanizing assassin of manga fame. It makes for a nice juxtaposition. The video is actually a whole press conference type thing (dang Japan likes promotional press conferences), so I set the video to automatically start at the commercial. Rewind by hand if you want to see what comes before that point.
Strong is a drink I noticed in combinis about a year or so ago. At 8% alcohol and a price of 200 or so yen, it is perfect for the current economic climate.
Here we have a girl (Satomi Ishihara) lecturing a wrestler that being strong alone is pointless. You need to be sugar-free too.
But actually I just want to use these CMs to remind you of the background music's source: The Peanuts. I did a post with them where you can hear this song, Love Fugue, here (it's the second one down, and don't forget the English version!).
I love curry cup noodles. They help me get through the excruciatingly cold winters here. But after seeing these commercials, I am craving a little cheese with my curry.
What is happening: An alien has come from planet cheese to shoot his cheese into this woman's cup. Mmmm.
Oh, it's Ms. Mozzarella alien! She's come to deposit her creamy white sauce in there too.
If you like zombie walks, why not try a cheese walk?
Lately there has been a commercial for Dragon Quest 6, staring white folk. But it's not the only one in the series to be advertised this way. Sometimes these CMs have English, sometimes a Slavic-sounding language (to my untrained ears), and sometimes Japanese dubbing. Here's what I found:
The SG-1000 never came to America, so I was ignorant of its existence until today, but it was a Atari-esque system made long ago. Here is a collection of Japanese language commercials for it. Ah, 80s cheese, how I love you. Oh an keep an ear cocked for the old Segaaaa jingoistic saying!
I previously posted part one of this series, and finally I've gotten around to part 2 (which covers some of the 60s) in time to make a new year's theme work.
I'm setting the video up to skip the first couple CMs and go straight into the one where they deal with お年玉 (otoshidama, new year's gifts to children).
Highlights include: Old man expelling lots of smoke, tengu eating curry, a fridge (they were big deals back then), and hearthrobs in 平凡 (heibon, mediocre) magazine.
I was a bit confused the first time I saw this poster. Just what is going on here? The caption reads (and I have to guess, because the verb is omitted as is often the case with poster exhortations): [give] freedom to your wallet. As you may notice from the corner graphic, it turns out this is a lottery ad.
You may remember Misaki Ito from the TV version of the Densha Otoko saga. Since that came out, I've spotted her in a few dramas, but most often I see her in commercials. I saw her selling vacuums in an infomercial one day and asked my gf why she was selling out. But selling out is not really a concept that is understood in Japan. You get famous so you can be in commercials, not graduate from them. A lot of it stems from the fact that stars just aren't payed as much over here. Plus, you have to keep your face out there, or this country will forget about you fast.
So the following CM is also from the Loto 6 campaign. Look at all the poor disenfranchised people being saved by the lottery. They trust that the lottery won't make them yet poorer. Good old lottery.
So she's actually French. The thing in the right of the ad at the end is a loto ticket booth, which appear in abundance in Japan. I've never played though, so I don't know why pencils are so important.
Here's one more image from the campaign that I lucked out in finding:
You may recall I posted one of the CMs from the following collection a while back, but there are some others in the series too. Ah the power that milk gives you! It makes you strong, beautiful, and able to concentrate...
I really don't understand pachinko, or why they decided to make Matrix-themed machines for it, but here you go. The Japanese guy is Yoichi Nukumizu, I know that because he appeared in another CM featured on this blog, and a reader was kind enough to fill me in.
In the first one, Yoichi goes down the rabbit hole to eat soba:
And here he tries to catch a seat:
[hat tip goes to Ken on JSOC for finding these and making things easy for me]
A student's imagination gets the best of him when he hears that milk increases concentration. So is the daydreaming he does before drinking ironic? Does he lack the ability to daydream in this way after drinking? I could give you the answer, but I forgot to drink milk today and so will stare at the clouds now.
What is Kuraray? By watching these, I get a vague idea that it has something to do with turning people into alpaca slaves to fight wars against aliens.
The best one: Sorry, they took the best one down because they apparently hate free adversising. You'll have to go here choose the CMs tab, and click on the commercial link in the lower right (the one with the green glowing thing) to see my favorite.
It's always struck me as odd how much the Simpsons get commercialized, but who am I to judge? And the rest of Hollywood secretly slinks out here to do commercials anyways (Youtube* Tommy Jones and Boss Coffee sometime), so it's about time we saw our favorite family in Japan. -- Yes I just made YouTube a verb. My friend used Wikipedia as a Japanese verb this morning (ウィキた, uikita is the past tense).
