I love commercial
06/03/2008 @ 12:00 am
As you can deduce from reading JAPUNDIT and just about any other Japan blog, Japanese TV commercials are pretty popular the world over. . . Except in Japan, where people tend to tune them out.
So what do Japanese advertisers decide to do? Produce a TV commercial about TV commercials, of course.
I’ve seen this a couple of times on TV. I thought it was a joke at first! If they didn’t play 10 solid minutes of commercials between programs, perhaps people would be less likely to tune out?
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:42 amMOST IRRITATING COMMERCIAL EVER
(”Let us now brainwash the sheep into better-accepting their regular brainwashing…”)
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:58 amBy far and away. I was sick of it from the first time I ever saw it.
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:14 pmWhat a pointless commercial!
I often find it strange how Japanese tv stations play the same commerical several times in a row. Now THAT is annoying.
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:51 pmCommercials are ok. It’s the lengthy interludes of dross between them that are doing far more harm.
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:32 pmWell…I Love CM. It’s true the commercials are the best part of Japanese TV. Years ago, I inherited a large stack of video tapes of Japanese daytime TV shows; mostly boring talk shows with an audience that periodically shouts “Ehhh!” whenever the host says something that’s allegedly clever. I still watch ‘em, but routinely fast forward to the commercial breaks. One of my favorites is this one: a whole bunch of women are caught in a downpour. The rain is coming down in buckets. But they are saved by a giant floating sanitary napkin that shields them from the rain. Sore wa CLASS, desu nee.
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:53 pmAh, yes, good ol’ Japanese commercials. I was doing like Bamboo with some old 90’s Japanese tapes too. Now that I remember, there’s a pile of old VHS tapes my friend gave me before going back in Japan which I still haven’t watched. Great! Potential YouTube material!
One of my favourite commercials is one about curry, marketed as fancy French food. There’s a mural, presumably set in France because of the French music playing in the background, and a man applying a new poster next to an older one. The old poster has a picture of a Japanese woman hugging a French man. The new poster has a curry dish. When the new poster is set, the woman becomes alive, turns around, and eats some of the curry in the poster next to her.
Now, the commercial itself is quite usual. However, what caught my attention is some French text over the picture of the curry. When I froze the frame, I could read the text, perfectly written, which if I remember correctly translates to “I prefer Japanese food more than French food.”
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:05 pmJapanese TV commercials do include some gems. It’s the thread-starting meta-commercial that raises my ire.
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:25 pm