Contrary to popular belief, the ButtBuddz is not actually a weeaboo establishment; For as much as we write about, say, Hidamari Sketch, we also like western stuff such as Swing You Sinners! as well. Anime (and by extension, anime styled video games) is only one piece in the pie that is “Stuff the Buttbuddz Like”, and a fairly small piece at that.
However, a recent article that could be considered our first ever “Bruticle” (term coined by Nobaddy) had been posted, and well… It’s no What Kaiserreich: Legacy of The Weltkrieg’s Second American Civil War can tell us about the world we live in today, to say the least. It’s time to bunk some myths about Pepsi and anime, or in the very least, consider this article -the very article you’re reading right now- a critique of some kind.
First off is the What Japan Thinks chart/poll mentioned in the original article; Luckily for everyone here, What Japan Thinks is a very good source. In fact, it’s such a good source that it even mentioned its sampling of the population and the statistics involved!
“Between the 29th of August and the 1st of September 2008 464 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private online survey.”
For reference, the amount of people who live in Japan is about 127 million people. The poll only represents the opinions of a mere 0.000003% of the country’s population. How can one say that it represents Japan’s opinion on Pepsi as a whole? Even if turns out that there aren’t a lot of Pepsi drinkers in Japan, Pepsi still makes non-anime-related efforts for their market such as their beloved mascot Pepsi Man, and all sorts of fun, Japan-exclusive flavors such as Pepsi Sakura, Pepsi Salty Watermelon, Pepsi Blue Hawaii, and Pepsi Mont Blanc, among many others.
This leads into our next topic; Pepsi’s advertisement in the anime Tiger & Bunny. First off, judging an anime (or any piece of media, for that matter) by its name is like judging a book by its cover; It’s not an accurate way to tell if the show is good or not.
Rather than talking about the title, let’s get onto the show itself; The lady featured in the advertisement, Blue Rose, is actually sponsored by Pepsi for the entire anime. She’s also a superhero, so she’s basically the anime equivalent of Pepsi Man.
While I haven’t actually seen Tiger & Bunny either, if we calculate the review scores to get an mean-average score for the show, it’s apparently as good as Batman Begins. (Or at least Rotten Tomatoes and IMBd’s opinion on the film.) This proves that Pepsi only approves the finest productions for its sponsorships. If you want to see what a truly BAD sponsorship looks like, perhaps we should have a look at the works of Pepsi’s rival company, and the drink of brutes everywhere, Coca Cola.
CASE STUDY: MAC AND ME.
While Coca Cola brags that it’s appeared in many, many famous films over the years, the first film that comes to the mind of the average person is the 1983 film, Mac and Me. To say that Coca Cola sponsored it would be a severe understatement; It’s Coke in film form!
The film is about aliens that require Coca Cola to survive. While the plot of the film is basically E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, you would never be able to tell due to the sheer amount of Coca Cola and McDonald’s product placement in the film. (Did I mention that the film really likes Coca Cola?)
There isn’t a lot more to say about Mac and Me, so we’ll be moving onto the next topic: Western Animation. I will give “Why anime is Anti-Pepsi” some credit here with its Spongebob Squarepants screenshot that points out that the show is pro-Pepsi; It’s the most compelling argument in the article, and provides actual evidence for its claims in the form of the screenshot itself. (Although Spongebob being pro-fish shouldn’t come to as a surprise to anyone, seeing as it’s located under the sea to begin with.)
Clearly, while Spongebob and every other fish-related cartoon are pro-Pepsi/pro-fish and therefore good, does it hold up for the rest of the western animation? I’m sure the “patriots” at Hanna-Barbera would like to disagree with you.
If that’s not an excuse to bring our scooby_doo_desecration channel back, I don’t know what is, and yet anime‘s supposedly the anti-Pepsi one… As far as finding pro-Coke stuff for both types of animation went, (not counting fan-made videos for either, because there were A LOT of those; the same thing applies with pro-Pepsi videos, too) they actually had about the same amount of Coca Cola sponsored content; It doesn’t matter if you’re The Simpsons or One Piece, you’re still not immune to being an advertisement for Coke.
Ultimately, anime is just as capable of being pro-Pepsi as any western medium can be. Likewise, western media is still capable of being pro-Coca Cola and unpatriotic. Anime is still part of Pepsi, and by extension, the Buttbuddz; Whether you love it, or hate it, it’s here to stay.
If you’re not into anime though, there’s still plenty of other content to enjoy here at the Buttbuddz. (Although I’d suggest checking out our YouTube channel instead, as it’s more balanced content-wise than Butt with a Blog currently is; The last few articles haven’t been helping with the over-abundance of anime on the blog at all.)
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