Japanese Commercials (mostly)
Posted by shanoah on May 17, 2008
As I may have pointed out in the past, some of the weirdest commercials come from Japan. Or, like the Fruity Oaty Bar one, Joss Whedon. But he clearly was inspired by Japanese, and more generally, Asian commercials.
Part of it is just simply a different outlook, a different language, and a different cultural background. Things that may have been jokes that any Japanese viewer would get immediately just seem like randomness to us. Sometimes I’m not sure, though.
Here are a few commercials I’ve found:
Alinamin V commercial
This is Arnold Schwarzenegger saving the day by chugging a Japanese energy drink. I’ve heard this particular energy drink actually turned out to have large quantities of Nicotine in it, though I could be wrong. Scarily, you can easily find several commercials Schwarzenegger did for this company.
Note: The person posting the commercial mislabeled it as a beer commercial.
LA Pizza
And here’s a pizza commercial I found scary, but rather funny.
Mikado
And then there’s this one. Since Mikado candy is actually called pocky in Japan, I’m not sure what country this is from. Amusing, though.
Little Red Riding Hood
This one, and possibly the last, are why this post is listed as not work safe. This one actually reminds me in spirit of that Orangina commercial I posted here a while ago. This certainly warrants a WTF. The company is a construction compary, but you’d never know it from this.
Her singing apparently translates to something like “Your dreams will grow, your hopes will grow, even your chest will grow”. So I’ve heard, anyways…
