Liftingfaces

This ad is offensive, but I am so glad to see what the world thinks about African-Americans. Keep doing what you do so that African Americans become aware of your thoughts

Please don’t mistake about it…
This CM is just a parody of Japanese TV drama.. “Change”
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ARkSXvtFvls
One of popular Japanese actors, Takuya Kimura(Kimutaku) is playing a role of Japanese Prime minister to be.
We often use the image of monkey acting like a human as a symbol of evolution.
This CM was also popular in Japan.
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ijoS1zj309M
These monkeys are Japanese monkeys with pinkish face, not at all black..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Macaque
We Japanese love these monkeys!!

Hi Ryan,

>the marketing team should know better

I agree with you…
They might not consider how the CM will be looked by the people in other countries when they made it..

The TV drama “Change” seems to be a really nice drama.
http://wwwz.fujitv.co.jp/change/
In this drama, an average elementary school teacher had changed and pursued to be a politician when his great politician father died. He eventually became the Prime Minister and he is trying hard to change the politics and Japan.

Many preferable comments were posted on the bulletin board on its site saying they wish to have a Prime Minister like him.

I don’t know why they named this TV drama “Change” but I think it’s a good title because the theme of the drama is “change” and we Japanese prefer to use English for titles of movies, TV dramas, products, etc.
They might think it’s also good to use the word “Change” because it’s included in Obama’s slogan. (I really don’t know about it, though)

So the TV drama is OK but the CM of Emobile does have a problem…

Well, we don’t have that much racial or religious issues in Japan…
I.e, we tend to be careless about those issues…
Emobile might be too careless about international issues…
Any video can be posted on Youtube and watched by the people all over the world now.. They should know better..

But I guess they decided to use human-like monkey first to let consumer know they were going to release some epoch-making products or services. Then they wondered what kind of role to be played by the monkey… They might want to make consumers stick in their mind about the great change in their service… So their keyword might be also “change”… They might be better to ask Takuya Kimura to appear in their CM but as he is a famous actor, his endorsement might be very expensive…(I even don’t know if they asked him about it, though…)

The monkey’s name is “Riku.” He is so cool and loved by Japanese people…
http://emobile.jp/movie/2008/EMCM2008-5making.html

This CM itself is not bad but they should have not released it while the election of American President is ongoing..

I really hope American people don’t mistake about this CM and hold bad impression on Japan…

I asked my friend to make Emobile realize this dispute. They should offer clarification and apology.
I don’t know how it works, though… Let’s see.

I have sent a complaint to Emobile as a customer (actually I’m using Emobile’s com card for my laptop pc). I agree with osaru that it wasn’t based on racism, but, they should have been more thoughtful — people in multiple cultures can watch the ad once it was put on the internet, even if it was only for the national market.

Found a good entry for this subject. fyi,
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=4930

You’re all being ridiculous. Despite your own fixation on racial issues that makes this seem relevant, the rest of the world just saw a funny video with a monkey. Stop being overly sensitive.