MOMOYA TV-Ads094-1973-Transformation

Time: 30 sec.

Product Name: EDO-MURASAKI-TOKKYU

Description of Product: EDO-MURASAKI-TOKKYU is a savory preserve made of seaweed, called “Nori-no-tsukudani” in Japanese. It is made with soy sauce, sugar and mirin (rice wine.) It is preservable, and often eaten with Japanese rice.

Year: 1973

Advertiser: Momoya Co., Ltd.

Advertising Agency: YOMIKO Advertising Inc.

Production Company: Television Corporation of Japan

It begins with scenery of a rugged mountain road, which evokes an Ukiyo-e series“Fugaku Sanjurokkei,” or “36 Views of Mount Fuji,” by Hokusai Katsushika of the Edo period. In the old Tokaido’s Hakone Hachiri which connects today’s Kanagawa and Shizuoka prefecture, a man travels with a horse and its driver so-called Umakata. Depicting a taximeter on the horse head and a watch on the traveler’s arm, this animation put the old and new technologies together. Moreover, the cultures of the East and the West are mixed, as the horse and Umakata transform into a winged white horse and a noble-looking man in white robe respectively. In those days, “Kamen Rider,” a sci-fi TV series based on a story created by Shotaro Ishinomori, had been broadcasted since 1971, and Japanese children had used to play imitating its transformation scene.