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A Japanese commercial for the strategy card game Hearthstone has become an overseas hit online by pitting the company president against a “regular office lady”.
The commercial cleverly works on the idea of the Japanese phrase “ippatsu gyakuten”, which means a “come from behind victory”.
The commercial begins with the company president (played by veteran acto, Minori Terada) being chauffeured in a Mercedes Benz to the front of a prestigious looking company headquarters.
Terada then leads a large entourage into the building with everyone dutifully greeting the boss with the accustomed “otsukarasama desu”, which is usually translated as something like, “thank you for your hard work” and often used a sign of respect.
One office lady (played by popular actress Ryo Sato), however, refuses to greet the boss and stands firm without bowing.
This results in an “ippatsu gyakuten” with the boss bowing to the office lady, immediately throwing the entire ground floor into chaos.
People falling off ladders, high heels breaking underneath women’s feet, businessmen accidentally pouring coffee onto their colleagues, and even the security guard’s shirt buttons bursting from the seams — it’s total mayhem! We then learn that the young woman had previously beaten the company president in a game of Hearthstone, which was apparently all it took to flip their social relationship on its head.
This commercial is not only well produced and extremely humorous, it also gives us an insight into the importance of hierarchy in Japanese society, hence the success of the video.
Here’s what netizens have been saying about the ad:
“The acting is better than a movie.” “This commercial will probably increase the number of women playing this game.” “This commercial is fantastic.” “This is a pretty catchy ad.”
Sources: Aol News, YouTube, Hearthstone Japan
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© Japan Today
14 Comments
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goldorak
People who know how to laugh at themselves get a thumbs up from me, loved it. Dunno if it will sell the product though.
gaijinfo
Cute commercial, don't know if it warrants such a gushing article, though.
nath
"Japanese commercial shows what happens when you beat the company president" In point of fact, it doesn't show anything of the kind. If it did, no one would comment on it. Its value lies in it's unreality. That people find it so amusing is a sad comment on the moribund, patriarchal nature of Japanese society, where women rank last or near last on all OECD equality measures. http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/japan/
EyeOfTheCat
Good ad.
CGB Spender
Japan needs more shachou-sans like that!
nath
Hah, I had a good chuckle at that. Well thought-of commercial!
Still not going to play the game though, not my type.
inkochi
@anotherexpat
Yeah,yeah, that maybe so. But the ad is just an ad. It is not real. It is fun.
Sometimes 'real', such as OECD statistics, is a bit 'moribund', don't you think?
albaleo
Is that such a bad thing? The beauty is surely that most people see the humor.
lostrune2
They should make a MMO out of that card game
dharmadan
This is about as much as you can get away in Japan in terms of satire at Japan Inc.'s expense. Anything more, and the powers that be would bury this ad.
theeastisred
The slogan ('Be legend') at the end is an unfortunate perpetration of faulty English. 'Legend' is a noun and requires an article. 'Be a legend' would be correct though a bit awkward.
Otherwise, pretty good commercial though. Including the absurdity of a game having any impact in the real world...
coskuri
Like the girl ? Sure. They'd better replace all the oldies with young gamers.
Shaniel Tinirau Sharma
That is pure gold! ????????????
FizzBit
Never heard of the game before but I don't play so no surprise there. But it looks like a strategy video card game, not a card game. The commercial is too noisy for me, but I can understand why folks like it.