Kamu to fu-nyan – it’s Fit’s

I have been getting a kick out of this commercial here:

It features SATO Takeru and SASAKI Nozomi, who are two popular tarento (talents) here in Japan who I never heard of before this commercial series became a hit.

They do this silly dance which must take a month-and-a-half to learn. And the lyrics for Nozomi (who is from Akita Prefecture) go something like:

A-ki A-ki Aki-ta!
Kamu to funyan nyan nyan nya nya funyan
Kamu to funyan nyan nyan nya nyan
Kamu to yawaraka LOTTE no Fit’s —FIT’S!

I don’t know exactly what is being said except “chew and funyan nyan”. Nyan nyan is maybe the sound a cat makes? Yawaraka is “easy to chew”.

The Sato segment is the same except he is filming in Nara–but born in Saitama Prefecture. I guess if your company is the owner of the Chiba Lotte baseball team, you aren’t going to run a CM going “Sai-ta, Sai-ta, Sai-tama!”

Aside from just being really catchy and creative—you know, the thing you look for in an ad—I like what I call the Heisei feeling of it. It’s the Heisei generation being loose and funny, yet very knowing and right on point.

For my stateside readers, Heisei Generation is referring to young people either born after 1988, or young enough not to remember the Showa era (1926-January 8, 1989). Heisei Kids, Heisei Boys, Heisei Girls. Like that.

So there is this energy there, that hasn’t been squeezed out by any dehumanizing elements of the Japanese education system (if there are any), nor has the screwball inanity of Japanese corporate life done anything to them, either. (Yet.)

This is nice to see. So I actually have bought this gum, more than once, and I don’t really chew gum as a habit.

Why? Because it’s “kamu to funyan”, that’s why. It’s . . . it’s: chew and something.

And the flavor lasts a long time.

The American Fair Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is cracking down on people, in America, who take free samples or money from companies to promote their products. So I want to add that I’ve never gotten even one thin yen or gum wrapper to wrap it in from Lotte. This endorsement is from the heart. It’s the “Fit’s Peppermint Soft & Long-lasting Flavor Gum” working its magic.

No Bobby Valentine autograph. No ticket to next year’s Chiba Lotte home opener. Nothing.

By the way, one sad thing is that the old commerical in the series, which showed Nozomi in Omotesando and Takeru I think somewhere in park near Tokyo Bay(?) suddenly is very hard to find on the internet.

Why?

I’d hate to think that someone in Lotte Corporate decided that the “time had expired” on that one, since there is a new commercial out. That makes no sense! Yes, on television where you have to pay for time, and your message better be as fresh as your mouth will feel chewing Fit’s Air Mint flavor. But on the net, it’s free! It’s free advertising—you get people looking for your message and enjoying it, and passing it around. For the same price as what you paid to get your message as far as today! Who else do you have to pay?

Who’s Whose brilliant idea was it to pull the original??? (Keep ’em away from the gum.)