The World Is Telling You to Keep Going / CalorieMate "Inner Voice"

The problem

Since 2012, CalorieMate has run a commercial series every exam season to support students taking entrance exams. For this fifth installment, they cast Aju Makita in the lead role, and the project started from the insight that "the harder a student is working, the less they want to hear someone else tell them to 'keep going.'" Working from the hypothesis that if there's anyone who can truly encourage these students, it might be the students themselves, the ad was filmed over four days in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka.

The insight

Watching the texture of the footage and the digest-style glimpses of a third-year high schooler's daily life, centered on Aju Makita, with its mix of quiet and intense moments, I found myself wondering: whose point of view is this footage from? How would a high schooler watching it feel? How would a parent feel? It's made so that it doesn't feel unnatural or off from anyone's perspective - in other words, it's crafted so you can simply lose yourself in the story. The students probably wouldn't shout "keep going" at themselves, even in their own heads, so it's probably meant to come from someone else - but maybe the point is to leave you with the feeling that it's the nameless many, the world itself, cheering them on.

The idea

The ad depicts exam students facing their exams by singing The Blue Hearts' famous song "Be Kind to People" together, as if it were their own inner voices cheering themselves on with "keep going!" In the scene where about 600 student extras actually sing, their singing was so heartfelt that the staff reportedly couldn't stop getting goosebumps. Through everyday moments - exchanges with classmates, time at cram school, studying at a cafe, arguing with parents - the ad portrays students struggling and pushing forward, in a way that feels true to life. Personally, the chorus - or more like a shout - at the 1:18 mark hit me the hardest.

What happened

Three versions were made - 15 seconds, 30 seconds, and 90 seconds - and the ad began airing nationwide on 11/17/2018. Aju Makita, cast in this CalorieMate commercial often seen as a stepping stone for rising young actresses, was 16 at the time and already an accomplished actress known for her work in films by director Hirokazu Kore-eda and others. This series has become an annual fixture, and it remains something exam students long remember as "an ad that stuck with me."

Afterthought

It's become something you can genuinely call a winter tradition now. The beauty of the footage itself, Orie Ichihashi's camerawork, Tsuguhisa Tanaka's direction, and the voices of 600 people all come together into something that stays with people of all generations, not just exam students. The fact that you find yourself wondering whose perspective you're watching from just shows how naturally immersive the footage is. The world is cheering you on - and the way this is conveyed, not by pushing it on you but quietly and firmly, gives it a strength that makes it, once again, a classic.

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