So I was riding the train home from work last night and was standing next to a poster of a baboon (a rather famous one in Japan named Taro) wearing a suit and holding a mobile phone with the word “CHANGE” in big type for a somewhat new mobile provider in Japan called EMobile. I took a shot of it tonight on my way home from work. Sorry for the blurry quality, but the train was moving.

Being that I love monkeys (a predisposition carried in my Y chromosome, I believe) I kept looking at it. Something in the back of my head was telling me I should be making a connection to something else, but it just wasn’t happening. Then shortly before going to bed I saw a TV commercial.

Connection immediately made. 

Hmm. “Change” and “Yes, we change” sound really familiar. A rally with thousands of people cheering on a charismatic guy holding signs with said slogans at… what looks to be… a convention. Almost as if they were supporting him. For something important. Like candidacy for some important office or something.

This campaign is offensive on several levels. Firstly, I wonder what Obama would think about his campaign slogans being appropriated for the sale of mobile phones in Japan. Secondly, I wonder how anyone producing what is such an obvious parody of Obama could think they could get away with comparing him to a monkey - a derogatory word still sometimes used by some Japanese when talking about black people. Even the voice used for the monkey is a Japanese “imitation” of Obama’s voice. And the omission of the word “can” from “Yes, we change” stems from the fact that many Japanese people know the other English words, but not the word “can”. 

This is just utterly amazing that this was not only thought up seriously for a campaign, but approved by the client and then aired on television and plastered on billboards / signs all over Japan. For what it’s worth, this is already starting to get a lot of negative attention within Japan - so don’t think that everyone in Japan is trapped in some racist mindset. I’d post links to the forums and whatnot, but it’s all in Japanese and wouldn’t really be useful for the bulk of my readers.