Comments on: "Samurai spirit-a!"

"Samurai spirit-a!"

mrducts — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:45:13 -0800

Quentin Tarantino is the latest American celebrity to be featured in a TV commercial for SoftBank Mobile Corp, a Japanese telecommunications and media company. Tarantino stars as "Uncle Tara-chan" in the bizarre and very popular "White family" commercial series. The Whites consist of the "Mom", the daughter "Me" (a Softbank shop saleswoman played by popular singer/actress Aya Ueto), the "Older Brother" (played by African American actor Dante Carter), and the father, Otosan, who happens to be a white Hokkaido-ken dog named Kaikun.

By: Lacking Subtlety

Lacking Subtlety — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:51:01 -0800

1. The internet has only slightly ruined the "commercials in japan" gig for celebrities where they get butt loads of money for doing a few days worth of work and Americans would never see it and judge them for either selling out/acting like an idiot. 2. QT most likely loved every single second of this. 3. I loved every single second of it too. 4. What the hell was that advertising exactly?

By: Avenger

Avenger — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:51:49 -0800

Makes sense to me.

By: kid ichorous

kid ichorous — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:54:50 -0800

I was going to go get a tasty beverage to wash this down with, but Korean Ringu Robocop stole my refridgerator.

By: echo target

echo target — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:08:27 -0800

So...it's a dog speakerphone? Huh.

By: peachfuzz

peachfuzz — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:09:08 -0800

Wow. This series of commercials is completely amazing. The QT one is like the weakest link.

By: KokuRyu

KokuRyu — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:09:45 -0800

It should be said that Softbank is the only Japanese carrier offering the iPhone, and is an investor in Yahoo! Japan, which is run as a separate company from Yahoo! and (unlike Google in the US) acts as the "Internet home page" for most Japanese folks on the web. So Softbank has some presence in the Japanse psyche.

By: splice

splice — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:10:24 -0800

What the hell was that advertising exactly? Well, uh, it's not like the commercial was, uh, Lacking Subtlety. Hahaha! Get it? Cuz like I took your name and I... uh. Anyway... It was pretty obvious that it was a commercial for a cell phone or carrier, actually.

By: Naberius

Naberius — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:11:53 -0800

Yeah, I have a hard time imagining Tarantino being even remotely embarrassed by this. Hell, he'll probably send it around to everyone he knows as this year's Christmas thing.

By: tommasz

tommasz — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:20:50 -0800

That dog's dynamite!

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:22:48 -0800

"Hello. My cakes?" "Eaten!" I LOLed

By: Jimmy Havok

Jimmy Havok — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:43:05 -0800

So that's what those dogs are called. It seemed to me that they were the only breed that existed in Japan. Nice dogs, by the way.

By: mannequito

mannequito — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:54:55 -0800

It was pretty obvious that it was a commercial for a cell phone or carrier, actually. What!? I thought it pretty obviously advertised the sale of talking Japanese dogs. They have those there, yeah?

By: xod

xod — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:03:59 -0800

"Steak!" /Dad

By: zardoz

zardoz — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:15:57 -0800

These commercials are generally really funny--totally deadpan humor. This one isn't, but at least Tarantino is speaking Japanese--most foreign celebs don't bother when they do commercials.

By: malthas

malthas — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:27:16 -0800

I saw the Tarantino one on Gizmodo the other day, and I just sort of thought it was weird and nonsensical. But now I see that it's the crappiest of a series of awesome and hilarious ads. Thanks!

By: lucidium

lucidium — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:38:49 -0800

This style of humour absolutely cracks me up. The first time I saw NHK's Domo adverts, they showed a whole three or four minute long series of them. If they'd gone on any longer I probably would have passed out from not being able to breathe in.

By: prinado

prinado — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:41:37 -0800

Needs more Bill Murray.

By: CitrusFreak12

CitrusFreak12 — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:00:00 -0800

Required "American Actor in Japanese Commercial" viewing: Tommy Lee Jones' commercials for Boss Coffee.

By: Joakim Ziegler

Joakim Ziegler — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:06:35 -0800

CitrusFreak12: That's pretty good, although for some reason my brain totally misread "Tommy Lee Jones" as "David Lee Roth", which I think would have been far better.

By: axiom

axiom — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:29:21 -0800

This is just to say your cakes? eaten.

By: XQUZYPHYR

XQUZYPHYR — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:37:10 -0800

This was just standard LOLJapan for me until I got to "Old man! STEAK" at which point this became the greatest thing ever.

By: Kevin Street

Kevin Street — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:54:51 -0800

"...and you of all people became a surgeon. But who could believe Shirato here would become a white dog?" "I can barely believe it myself!" Love these.

By: empath

empath — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:36:00 -0800

I enjoyed this better than Death Proof

By: armage

armage — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:42:01 -0800

It is a cute series of commercials, but this one's got a pretty high "WTF" factor. Tarantino is a known Japanophile so it doesn't surprise me he was able to get in on this. Tommy Lee Jones' Boss commercials are also funny. Now if you want to see some real shilling, try Robert De Niro or Ewan McGregor. Every time I see those I cringe. It's not the 80s anymore, guys -- the whole world can see you now. What!? I thought it pretty obviously advertised the sale of talking Japanese dogs. They have those there, yeah? But of course. popular ~~singer/actress~~ pretty young thing Aya Ueto FTFY.

By: mrducts

mrducts — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:12:04 -0800

So that's what those dogs are called. It seemed to me that they were the only breed that existed in Japan. Nice dogs, by the way. Actually, Jimmy Havok, I had never heard of the Hokkaido dog before. As far as I knew, the Shiba Inu was the Japanese dog breed. When I was gathering links for this post I actually ran across an article that called Otosan a "cream Shiba". I couldn't find any corroborating info so I just took the word of the original link I posted. I love the Shiba Inu BTW, but the Hokkaido-ken is an awesome looking dog as well. They look very similar to a Spitz. popular singer/actress pretty young thing Aya Ueto But of course!

By: barc0001

barc0001 — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:35:42 -0800

I watched this three times. The second and third time thinking "WTF is a bank promoting dog shaped speakers for". Then I realized Softbank isn't actually a bank, but a cell provider. That makes more sense.

By: Megami

Megami — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:21:27 -0800

My five year old loves the talking dog but reports the Tommy Lee Jones commercial needs more 'funny'. So, heads up to all of you trying to crack the five year old market...

By: StarmanDXE

StarmanDXE — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:41:25 -0800

Let us not leave out Jack Bauer selling Calorie Mate.