Yeah. This is ridiculous. Microsoft? For christ's sake...

There is no rational explanation for accepting MS money except for the mere fact that it's money, and you guys want it. Don't try to defend it as anything other than a profit motive, because as has been said here, there are plenty of other advertisers....but then again, not too many with MS kind of dollars. So go ahead and embrace it, drop the denial. As the man said, "The best things in life are free, but you can keep 'em for the birds and bees."

You know, the only thing that truly bothers me is that so you know many of your readers hate this company, guys. It's sad to see that Bill Gates' money is more important than your readers.

Ummm....I feel kind of icky.

@ #31 and 43, my problem isn't that this is mocking Japanese culture, or anything of the sort.

My problem is that this video, presented on BoingBoing as a Japanese commercial, and eliciting comments like #6 or #4 HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JAPANESE CULTURE. This is a video made by one person remixing lots of different Japanese commercials and a song from a video game. Most Japanese people, on seeing this video, would almost certainly react exactly the same as most Americans.

My problem is that the presentation of this video simply perpetuates the stereotype of "Those Japanese are sooooo crazy." This is clearly evident in the comments so far received. This is also evident in nearly every post on Japan on this Website.

Seriously, this stuff has as much to do with the reality of Japan as Eraserhead has to do with the reality of the U.S.

Can't you read? This is a MASHUP. It's not, in fact, a Japanese Commercial. Commercials in Japan are not 5 minutes long. And while often bizarre, they are not drug induced seizures.
Seriously, I am sick of this twisted fascination with Japan.
Please, just stop and think. Japan is not Wackyland, it's not some bizarro other dimension full of insane Aliens. It's just another country. Some things are different, but not nearly as different as many of you seem so desperate to think.

Congratulations and omedetou gozaimasu! From my Not quite English speaking wife.
Enjoy the sleep you can get while you can get it!

While it is certainly valuable to read and enjoy literature from all cultural backgrounds, I have to say as someone who has been both a translator and a student of literature in other languages for many a year now (including German, Greek, Old English and Japanese), please, PLEASE don't assume you know anything about the author's style, or influences, or whatnot, from a translation. Remember, a translator, even the very best translator, is a filter that inevitably skews the style of the original.
The stilted quality that Cory refers to is very likely the translation; finding the happy medium somewhere between writing your own story with the "flavor" of the original and a word-by-word gloss of the original very often leads to a certain vague "otherness" in the text.
That said, I do look forward to this filling of a great hole in my library--Romanian SF!

I thought wave-o'-babies was a shoo-in for that one.

WAVE-O'-BABIES!!!

Oh wow, so, when did BoingBoing become Letsjapan.org? We've got NOVA news AND Japan/Gaijin bashing!!!

Anyway, it's all well and good to point out Japanese xenophobia, but really, events like this only go to enhance it. Thank god they made sure that these people were mostly Caucasians; a large group of drunken southeast Asians, or Africans, or any other ethnicity, would have resulted in an international incident.

Question: did any of you actually read that Japan Probe article? The backlash started BEFORE the event. People were threatening to "stab all the foreigners" to prevent the party from happening...
Yeah, Japanese people are all smiles and sunshine.

My god, this Japan obsession has got to end. Why is this interesting? Why is Harajuku interesting? Because tons of girls who don't want to look like everyone else dress up in crazy outfits--like all the other girls in Harajuku?
Look at this crap!

I live in western Honshu, which is quite a bit different from Tokyo--I've never seen or heard of this little guy except on the Net. Why is it such big news? Is it just another example of 'those wacky Japanese'?

Honestly, it just looks like a really fat horse to me. I mean, do bears' legs bend like that? And that big mountain feature looks like a long, flowing tail coming from the back end. . .
Verrueckte Schweizer!