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Controversy Over Osomatsu-kun Use In Sake Ads Date: 10/26/2005 |
| With the northern hemisphere entering cooler weather, the season of oden (Japanese hotchpotch) has began. Traditionally, oden is a stew type mix of vegetables, fish etc.. simmered for several hours, usually in a ceramic pot. Warm sake (Japanese rice wine) often accompanies oden among adults. The Japanese company Kizakura has just released a new product, Chibitano Kansake which uses the character Osomatsu-kun created by Fujio Akatsuka. The Osomatsu-kun manga was originally serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday in 1962 and later adapted to a popular animated TV series. Oden just happened to be the favorite dish of the title character. Although he's drawn with a mustache holding oden on a skewer in the currently running ads and television spots, there's been some controversy over the use of Osomatsu-kun (originally a children's cartoon) in conjunction with advertising related to a product of Japan's alcohol brewing industry. Representatives of Kizakura have said they were aware of this and made the character used in their promotion, clearly a grown up version of the original (hence the mustache). It's also said that there many Japanese of legal drinking age who don't draw a connection between Osomatsu-kun and oden. |
| Source: Anime News Service |
