This video started with me intending to analyze a few different Japanese commercials.
But as I kept researching into this single one, the so-called “rabbit hole” got deeper
and deeper. Eventually involving some controversial topics, Japan's first personal website, and a prediction of cryptocurrency from 1997.
Just start by watching it with no context.
laughed so hard when I heard that.
It’s not censored by the way, I censored it.
This is a commercial for an internet business company called Digital Garage.
They are a MASSIVE, owning some gigantic Japanese websites like Kakaku.com (tech price comparison
website) and Tabelog (restaurant review website).
Let’s start with the basics.
The gentleman in the video is Yamshita Tomohisa.
He got famous for being an idol, in a group called NEWS.
It’s a JOHNNY’s group, which is a super famous company that operates a ton of other
idol groups, named after their founder Johnny Kitagawa.
In Japan, Yamashita is more commonly known by his nickname, 山P.
As a result of being a super famous idol, he also acts in movies and stuff.
He’s in some recent Netflix thing.
Also, he’s apparently friends with Will Smith’s kids…?
Anyways, he’s not some random guy.
The Penguin is called FUGKING apparently, spelled as I am showing on screen.
In the commercial, all he does is say his name.
But he is speaking through subtitles.
According to his official bio on the website, his name comes from a shortening of “FIRST
PENGUIN.”
First is pronounced ファースト and penguin ペンギン so they take the first and last
syllable for ファギン.
Apparently the First Penguin refers to the one that has the courage to jump into the
water seeking food first.
It says he operates the so-called “strange garage” that can navigate time and space,
bringing 山P to many different places.
His personality is that he gives his all at everything he does, he’s full of curiosity,
and very competitive, but a bit clumsy.
So, this is actually a series of commercials, and 山P is speaking in English in all of
them.
He doesn’t talk much in this one, but I’ve translated of the Japanese captions for you.
Not the words he’s saying – what the text the intended viewers of this commercial are
reading says.
Let’s watch it again.
The “Strange Garage” is obviously meant to represent the company, Digital Garage.
By the way… what is this piece of glassware that he picks up at the start of the video?
Hmm…
Okay.
So as you can see, this is where it gets interesting.
Turns out the very first personal home page in all of Japan was created by the predecessor
company to Digital Garage.
After realizing this, my opinion of the commercial legitimately did a complete 180 from Cringe
to Cool.
It’s called TOMIGAYA because that’s where their office was at the time.
(In Shibuya, Tokyo)
And…
it was archived!
Awesome!
You can actually check it out using Archive.org.
The Japanese version has formatting errors that can probably be fixed, but there’s
an English version so I’ll be showing that one.
The English website is better anyways, for reasons I will get into later.
Let’s start with, Digital Garage has a lot of connections to psychedelics and this guy
named Timothy Leary.
I didn’t know who he was before making this video, but apparently he was a massive figure
and responsible for a lot of progress in that community or something.
I’m sure you guys will tell me about him in the comments.
They had him on their First Japanese Homepage, they have him a few more times on this website
that you’ll see later… and even in 2015, Digital Garage used quotes from him on their
“credo” at events like this, and they still have a quote from him on their website.
I actually can’t believe a Japanese company with a billion dollar USD market cap has quotes
from this guy on their Purpose and Mission page.
Anyways, if you click on his name on their homepage, you get here.
The kanji loads completely wrong, but it’s still readable – It says “We all learned
a lot from Tim.
Click on the candles to say thanks to Tim.”
I guess it’s because he died in 1996?
This page was first archived in 1997.
The images used to be Candles it seems, but they don’t load anymore.
Clicking gets you here, where it roughly says “Happy birthday Tim, thank you Tim.
For the rest of our lives, we will think for ourselves.
Take care, Tim, see you later.”
with a whole bunch of candles around it too.
Also on their homepage, they have a page called Weird Stuff.
Look at the very first link, lol.
Now look here.
Isn’t this insane?
This page linked to something called the METAVERSE back in 1997!
Here’s what the Metaverse was in April 1997.
The domain was actually metaverse.com too.
Here’s a slightly older version of the Metaverse from January 1997 instead.
Do you guys wanna see the gorilla cam?
I did!
This next one blew me away.
I legitimately could not believe what I was reading.
I thought it must’ve been fake, edited somehow.
But no.
It actually says “One effort that has no foundation in actual money is Digicash.
Based in the Netherlands, they are using Crypto to mint digital cash.”
I couldn’t believe this was written in 1997.
After thinking about it for a bit, I think “Crypto” was short for “Cryptography”
in this sentence.
Not “Cryptocurrency”.
The Digicash wikipedia article is really interesting, I had no idea that this stuff was tried so
early on.
I won’t get into it here, but check it out if you’re interested.
Finally, look at this.
“Learn more about Radiation Studies from this server in Hiroshima, Japan.
They should know.”
WHAT?
Why would they write that little quip at the end!?
Now I wanted to know what the Japanese version of this page said.
Of course, this part was missing.
I am almost certain that this website was actually written in English first, and then
translated, most likely by a different person.
The main reason is because if you look at this link for Shareware.com, it says “Loads
of shareware to be accessed here.”
But the Japanese was mistranslated to “Load your shareware and access it here.”
There’s so much more to talk about on this website, but those were the best parts I found.
Back on the original Digital Garage website, I did find this little “Explore the Garage”
feature.
Kinda cute.
See, that rabbit hole ended up being quite deep.
I did not expect to learn all that when I watched the original commercial.
At the end of every video, I tell a personal story that hopefully connects to the video
somehow.
At the beginning of 2019, I was trying to expand my music taste.
I thought an easy way to do that was to listen to all of Anthony Fantano’s Top 10 Albums
of the last year.
Through this, I found the artist Harunemuri, who he gave a very high rating to, and I started
to like.
That summer, I managed to go to a concert of hers.
I got some stuff signed and got to talk to her, but there were a lot of other foreign
fans there, and I kinda ended up being the translator which was fun.
Afterwards, me, her, and her manager talked for around an hour or two about our lives
and stuff.
They asked if there were any songs I wanted to hear but she didn’t play that night,
I named my favourite song of hers.
A month later, I went to another gig, and she, coincidentally, I thought, played the
song.
Afterwards, they came over to me, and told me they remembered me, and asked if I was
happy to that song.
It was so cool!
This connects to this video because she has actually been in a few Japanese commercials
of her own!
Links in the description.