After watching yesterday’s video I explored a bit more, and somebody is actually compiling the best, or at least strangest, commercials from Japan each week or 3. These include some serious genre references and products along side the merely wacked out, and I enjoyed them too much to keep them to myself. I particularly enjoyed the Kyary Pamyu Pamyu spots on each video, using her music to promote her fashion line, and the Mecha spots they had long before we started doing Iron Man commercials..
I love the amazing array of genre coming out of Japan, but some of their output is strange. I THINK this may be a recruiting video for McDonald’s street theater staff in Tokyo (why don’t we have that here?), but it could also be a girl with Hypno Toad genes creating her own cadre of dancing zombies. Maybe a commercial, maybe a music video, maybe filmed as part of a collage film making course; hard to tell from this side of the screen, but definitely different. Thanks to Japanator for the heads up on this one.
The band CN Blue from Korea has a bit of rock to their style, unlike many of their contemporaries who seem to worship at the Pop Alter… watch the videos and let me know what you think.
Crunchyroll was the first streaming video service of any kind that impressed me enough that I got a paid subscription. In part, that was because I didn’t have to hand them money to watch any of the shows or join the online community, which made me feel welcome and included. In part it was because they have a huge library of programming available from a lot of sources, including not only Anime but also live action dramas and even music videos that never get played here, and I wanted to support that so it would continue to be available. In part it was to get the HD video quality, since the free version only comes in standard def. I do have to confess that while I told myself it was also so I could watch my favorite Anime shows an hour after the episode first aired in Tokyo, I only did that with six episodes of a single show just to feel that new-show thrill. I find I enjoy it more if I can watch 3 or so episodes back to back every several weeks, at a time of day that does not involve setting alarm clocks. When you watch enough different shows, this actually works out very nicely. If you are an Anime fan, you owe it to yourself to check out Crunchyroll, and if you like what you see you should at the minimum join the fan based community there.
It doesn’t sound any different than you would expect to hear here… and that is the point, isn’t it? Some things become a universal language, just by the nature of the device. This particular collection is from Japan, but it could have been from Ireland or Siberia or San Francisco for all the human ear can tell. The images being mostly still snap shots gives you no additional clues either. I do find this a tasty assortment of recorded guitar work, and look forward to adding it to the audio portion of my media collection, because it is so well done.
This week seems to be all about the music, so here is Kyary Pamyu Pamyu with her new song Ninja Ri Bang Bang. It is just as kawaii as you would expect, although this time her dancers without faces (why does nobody but Kyary ever have a face in one of her videos?) are animated rather than live action. She performed this live on last week’s episode of Music Station, where it came in ranked number 4 for the week in Japan.