CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

I've noticed after watching episode 4 of Gunslinger Girl that there is quite a bit of product placement: a Porsche Boxster. I've also seen Kibun soymilk in Pani Poni Dash. What examples of product placement have you seen in anime?

Anime will often circumvent copyright hassles with product placement by giving an actual product a fake/inverted brand name.

Examples: several instances of characters carrying "Nihon" (Nikkon) cameras

In Higurashi, "Kenta-kun" refers to Colonel Sanders. They refer to the KFC-like franchise as KCF

In Rozen Maiden manga, there's a bear who attacks the main character named "Booh".


As for real product placement, though I haven't seen the series apparently Code Geass is saturated with references to Pizza Hut.

[font="Trebuchet MS"][SIZE="4"][color="RoyalBlue"]Blatent product placement has got to be "Wac"donalds on "Inuyasha".[/color][/SIZE][/font]

I've seen McDonald's in a number of anime, actually. XD I was watching something recently...I forget what, but it also had McDonald's product placement. XD

Oh right--many depictions of McD's in anime will portray the arches as a W.

I've seen characters drinking Ramune in a couple anime (Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi springs to mind)

Ponta! DDD Fanta, Prince of Tennis style! Also Ryoma's Fila cap, and the Yonex bags. :B

So many one-letter-changed brand-names occur in Anime, that I feel like there needs to be a name for the practice (like 'Hammerspace' for the alternate dimension in which Bugs Bunny and other keep gigantic hammers or Sosuke Sagara keeps all that weaponry.)

For acual product placement, without alterations, the most recent one I've seen is Bulldog brand Tonkatsu sauce (a Japanese condiment somewhat like BBQ sauce.) I've seen Coca-Cola recently, too. I'm also reasonably certain I've seen Boss brand canned coffee, but that might have been another 1-letter-changed item. I didn't get a good look at it.

Digimon had Suny instead of Sony and the Rayearth OVA had Sabway instead of Subway. I had a topic that lists a bunch more, but can't remember anything at the moment^^

Does the fact that Haruko drives a Vespa mean anything to anyone?

I just remembered: in Whisper of the Heart, a building labeled "Panasonic" is seen in the background during a bus ride. XD I think there were other company names mentioned, too, but I can't remember. That one in particular just stuck out to me. XD

Gunslinger Girl actually has a lot of vehicle-related product placement. I saw Ferrari, Maserati, Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.

And I certainly know about WcDonalds.

EricTheFred wrote:I'm also reasonably certain I've seen Boss brand canned coffee, but that might have been another 1-letter-changed item. I didn't get a good look at it.

I think this one was in Air Gear...? >.>; BOSS coffee is really good.

Radical Dreamer wrote:I just remembered: in Whisper of the Heart, a building labeled "Panasonic" is seen in the background during a bus ride. XD I think there were other company names mentioned, too, but I can't remember. That one in particular just stuck out to me. XD

I saw that one too. Did you think the company help fund the film? I also saw a few Coca-Cola cans on the street in the film.

There's also "Pippu" soda in Gunsmith Cats ~ you'll notice the color scheme and logo is extremely similar to Pepsi's of that period. Not to mention the real-world cars and firearms, although I'd chalk that up to geeking out on the author's part [which I whole-heartedly approve of ~ if I were a character in an action anime or manga, I'd be the guns geek]. By that same token, I doubt the Vespa and various real-world instruments [left-handed Rickenbacker 4001, Gibson EB-0 and Flying V, etc.] in FLCL are product placement; rather, they are stylistic choices [unlike, say, the God-forsaken second Fantastic Four movie . . . urge to destroy Hollywood rising . . .]. Product placement, as I understand it, is when a company seeks to have its product featured in a fictional work; ergo, the intent is to advertise said product[s].

.rai//

Debitt wrote:I think this one was in Air Gear...? >.>; BOSS coffee is really good.

Yeah, I was watching a few episodes of Air Gear recently, so that sounds likely. It just occurred to me, I saw "Boss" placed, and plugged by name, in the School Rumble manga the other day, too. Sadly, my local Japanese market stopped stocking all forms of canned coffee about six months ago, to make room for all the Green Tea drinks flooding onto the market. I've been forced to make do with Starbucks and Cinnabon brands, which just aren't as good.

Another form of product placement just occurred to me, as well. Several times in "Pani Poni Dash" they mention (and sometimes poke fun at) Square Enix. Anyone care to guess who's the original main sponsor of Pani Poni Dash?

I already know. Square Enix publishes GFantasy, the manga magazine with Pani Poni.

I think the car that Chihiro's parents were driving was a Honda or a Volkswagen. I don't know.

Darker Than Black would lead you to believe practically everyone in Tokyo eats at Pizza Hut.

Noein also did a parody of Boss soda, calling it "Voss" soda.

Oh yeah, I noticed another product placed in "Chobits"...

The guy that kidnaps Chi has a book on a chair called "Red HOT Linux".

uc pseudonym wrote:Darker Than Black would lead you to believe practically everyone in Tokyo eats at Pizza Hut.

I think you meant Code Geass. I don't remember any blatent product placement in Darker Than Black. But Pizza Hut is definately alllll over Code Geass, to the point that it's annoying.

MyrrhLynn wrote:I think you meant Code Geass. I don't remember any blatent product placement in Darker Than Black. But Pizza Hut is definately alllll over Code Geass, to the point that it's annoying.

I have never seen Code Geass and I'm quite sure it's in Darker Than Black. At various points there are Pizza Hut boxes on tables and in the streets there are Pizza Hut ads among the other generic ones. It's all relatively subtle. That or I am crazy.

EDIT: I'm not. Here's the first example I could find, beginning of episode 10:

Lucky Star: ridiculously blatant Haruhi references. No, really, you have to see it to believe it.

I've seen, Popsi in an anime and the Cowboy Bebop movie actually has product placement for Coca-Cola.