Nissin, creators of Cup Noodle, are well known for producing bizarre(and often hilarious) TV adverts, but this latest offering is even more random than usual. Parodying battles which occurred around the Meiji restoration in 19th century Japan, this ad features salary men in samurai garb facing off against American forces, all the while greeting each other quite cordially in English. If you’re teaching English in Japan, this exchange might sound quite familiar to you, minus the epic battle of course 🙂 The advert ends with the word SURVIVE slapped dramatically across a red background, ok then.
Update: after a really interesting chat with some students about this, I’ve learned the advert is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on globalisation within Japanese companies – behemoths such as Rakuten and Fast Retailing have adopted English as their official language for all internal communication.
Here are some previous Cup Noodle ads, featuring pop Yoda and the RX-78 Gundam getting their noodle on.
I visited Nissin’s Momofuku Instant Ramen Museum last year, it’s a cool place to visit if you come to Osaka!