The Product: Some model of Toyota or other.

The Ad: It uses a clear (and quite literal) idea to convey Toyota’s ‘Human Touch’ strapline, featuring a number of salarymen performing the roles of car components.

The Stars: The salarymen, memorable in the same way that androids in films tend to be (Westworld, A.I. etc). They’re also a good example of kimo-kawaii.

Why It’s Top: As the best TV ads do, this one uses a unique idea to convey a message anyone can understand. It’s also quite subversive in the it represents a reversal of the Japanese obsession of replacing humans with automated robots.

You can find the BigOnJapan.com Japanese Movie Quiz here on Facebook or check it out below. It’s a quiz about Japanese movies, actors and directors, as well as films made on location in Japan. If you take the quiz on Facebook you can get the correct answers instantly, whereas if you take the quiz below you can find a link to the answers at the bottom of the post. Gambatte!

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Q01: In the film Lost In Translation, Bill Murray is in Japan to promote which product?

1. Nissin Cup Noodles
2. Asahi Beer
3. Pocky Chocolate
4. Suntory Whisky
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These are the answers to the BigOnJapan.com Japanese Movie Quiz posted above. No cheating! (more…)

An interesting clip that gives a good idea of the frenetic pace of both TV programmes and construction work in Japan. Featuring the Shinjuku skyscraper district of Tokyo, keep an eye out and you’ll see one of Japan’s most impressive buildings, Tochō.

This clip is a compilation of segments featuring impressive ‘Pythagorean devices’ from Japanese kids’ TV programme Pitagora Suicchi (Pythagora Switch). Pop-culture vultures will be familiar with this kind of device from films like Back To The Future and The Goonies.

The ones in this clip are made from the kind of items you would find at home or in the classroom, but are incredibly sophisticated nonetheless. They’re also accompanied by one of those insanely catchy jingles that Japanese people seem to love, so chances are you’ll be humming the tune for the next few days.

Regular viewers of Japanese TV will be familiar with the uaido shō (wide shows=variety shows) that dominate TV schedules in Japan. These consist of tarento (TV personalities) and comedians getting together to particapate in group activities, most commonly those staples of Japanese life, eating, drinking, shopping and travelling.

There’s only one thing that the people on these shows like doing more, and that’s (more…)

The last two Top TV Commercials have focused on products unique to Japan that have been advertised in a memorable way. This time round, I’m going to look at memorable Japanese advertising for a product that isn’t unique to Japan, but is familiar to people all over the world.

The Product: Fanta. Everyone knows the brand name, but as well as the usual orenji (orange) flavour Fanta, this series of ads also introduces the less familiar flavours of gurēpufurūtsu (grapefruit), howaito piichi (white peach), sumomo (plum), toropikaru furūtsu (tropical fruit), suiitii (sweety), gurēpu (grape) and sappari piichi (refreshing peach). For a full list of Fanta flavours sold in Japan, see Wikipedia.

The Ads: This series of 7 ads features a different teacher in the first six. The final one has all the teachers together with the school principle.

The teachers are: Mr Leather, an English (more…)

Following my previous Reblogging Japan post about kids’ beer, here’s a TV ad for the product from YouTube.

The Product: You need to be 20 years old to legally buy alcohol in Japan, but that hasn’t stopped the Sangaria company bringing out kodomo no nomimono (lit:children’s drink), a drink they basically market as beer for kids. Admittedly the product doesn’t contain any alcohol, but the fact that it’s blatantly portrayed as imitation beer means it’s the kind of thing you’d never find in a western country. (more…)

4 Japanese Beer TV Ads Featuring Harrison Ford

After the global success of The Fugitive in 1993, Harrison Ford went on to make a series of beer commercials in Japan the following year. At the time still the biggest thing since sliced bread, he was the perfect frontman for Kirin’s ‘Mr Beer’ campaign, which showed him drinking beer with Japanese people in assorted Japanese settings:

Drinking in a Yakitori-ya

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Anyone who was living in Japan in 2006/2007 will no doubt be familiar with the tarako commercials, which I wrote about in this article. The Kyūpii advertising campaign was one of the most memorable in recent years, and the tarako craze is still going strong. Here’s an inflatable tarako I found in Kyōbashi shōtengai.