8 Completely Insane Japanese Video Game Commercials

Japan is famous for two things: video games and being absolutely crazy. That combination has produced plenty of weird games, but there are side effects as well; the entire depiction of video games in Japanese society is baffling. Nowhere is that more evident than in their commercials, which attempt to persuade people into making purchases with a mixture of singing, dancing and insanity.

1. Dr. Mario

We’re all well aware that Dr. Mario isn’t an actual doctor, although we’d like to think that he could function as one in an emergency. Sadly, this ad crushes our dreams, as it’s a remarkably inaccurate portrayal of how medicine works.

We have to wonder how many poor Japanese children were misled by this commercial. If viruses were really that adorable and playful we’d want to get sick all the time, especially if it meant visits from a doctor in a Mario costume and his giant candy pills. Whenever those kids went through their first real illness they must have had one awful letdown.

2. God Hand

God Hand was already a pretty strange game, filled with offbeat Japanese humour in-between all the sequences of punching dudes in the face. Seriously, it would have been next to impossible to make the commercials weirder than the game itself.

But somebody, some heroic ad agency employee, found a way. In retrospect, the answer was so obvious. A shirtless guy with a fist for a head running around spanking women and ripping off car doors? It’s as amazing as it is nonsensical. Normally we’d say that an understanding of Japanese would make the commercial clearer, but in this case we’re pretty sure we’d end up even more baffled. Sure, we might get an explanation for why these women are being sexually harassed, but the reasoning would be insane.

3. Sega Saturn

Remember the great Sega/Nintendo rivalry from the mid-90s? In North America we got ads where the two companies trash talked each other, but in Japan Sega took things to the next level with some serious intimidation tactics.

That’s right, Sega’s spokesperson just beat the shit out of an entire club so they’d be “encouraged” to purchase the Saturn. There was a whole series of these commercials, and they all involved the character of Segata Sanshiro using excessive force on anyone who wasn’t constantly enjoying Sega products. Damn, that makes the “Sega does what Nintendon’t” slogan sound pretty ominous.

4. F-1 Racer

That’s right, not even the realistic, technical genre of non-banana peel flinging racing games is safe from the Japanese. Regardless of a game’s content there’s a Nippon ad agency out there that’s more than willing to sell it with a catchy tune and ridiculous dancing.

We’re not sure what frolicking men with little car costumes have to do with racing, but now that we think about it they’re much more entertaining than an actual F-1 race. Maybe this ad had the right idea after all.

5. Cho Aniki Zero

Cho Aniki is a series of 2D shooting games starring big, muscular, gay men. We don’t mean that as an insult; watch the ad and see for yourselves.

If you sat through the whole minute and a half you’ll find that you’re now wearing assless chaps, and you’ll discover the Village People’s entire discography somewhere in your house. Although those albums won’t do you much good, because you’re never, ever, going to get this game’s theme song out of your head. Don’t fight it; it’s a battle you can’t win.

6. Crash Bandicoot and PaRappa

If there’s one thing kids love more than video games it’s… cooking shows, apparently. That was presumably the tenuous logic behind this commercial featuring two of the PlayStation’s most popular characters.

Man, Crash is one cocky looking punk. There’s something strange about the host too… probably his giant PlayStation face.

Again, we have no idea what the message is here. We get that they’re trying to make these characters popular, but this couldn’t have less to do with video games. The “food” they’ve prepared looks absolutely hideous, so maybe the idea is that they’re too busy being part of awesome games to learn culinary skills? OK, that makes no sense, but if you have a better theory we’d love to hear it.

7. Crash Bandicoot Racing

Not content to merely star in a cooking show, Crash had to advertise his racing game by, um , ruining some family’s lawn and then getting an old dude arrested. Dick move, Crash.

As near as we can tell, the old guy was reminiscing about the days when he used to dress up as an anthropomorphic bandicoot before deciding to live the dream one last time. His family is understandably upset by his furry hobby, but all that’s put aside when Crash slams his giant kart through their hedge and gets his human double arrested by the most incompetent police officers ever. So buy Crash Bandicoot Racing, kids! It will help you… uh… frame people? Just buy it, damnit.

8. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Anyone who’s an avid gamer is familiar with the Zelda franchise and its many iconic elements. The items, the dungeons, the elaborate dance routines…

What, you don’t remember the dance fighting? That’s because it would have been too awesome for the video game console to process. Seriously, we can’t make fun of this, it’s amazing. It’s like a trailer for a low budget Bollywood Zelda adaptation. No, we don’t know why Link looks like more of a girl than the Princess and her manly voice, but who cares? They react to the big villain rearing up to stop them with some sweet dance punches. That’s really all you need to know.