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今西数英教室 | 一生忘れない塾。 | 2024
The Strength to Say, Flatly, "The Day It Ends Will Come" / Imanishi Suei Juku "Song Edition"
Every year's ad from this brand is good. But this "Song Edition" is on another level.
Subject
youth
16 articles
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カロリーメイト | 光も影も | 2024
Creating Light with an Eraser / CALORIEMATE "Light and Shadow"
The tenth installment in the series, and the first time an art school exam candidate took the lead role. Boys had taken the lead four years running, from '19 to '22, so longtime fans who'd been thinking "maybe it's a girl's turn soon" couldn't help but grin.
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カロリーメイト | 狭い広い世界で | 2024
Watching from the other side of the phone screen, all along / CALORIEMATE "In a World Both Narrow and Wide"
Through the screen of a smartphone, someone had been watching a whole year in the life of a student preparing for exams. The 2019 song "Boku no Koto" gets a new orchestral arrangement, and all three members of Mrs. GREEN APPLE even make cameo appearances.
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大塚製薬 | 入学から、この世界だった僕たちへ。 | 2023
No One Was Watching, Behind the Mask / Otsuka Pharmaceutical CALORIEMATE "To Us, For Whom This Has Been the World Since We Entered School."
A track athlete running in a mask, a canoe club member paddling at dusk, a kendo student swinging a sword at home. You can only see half their face, but their eyes alone carry all the intensity.
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大塚製薬 | Midnight Train | 2022
Through the Night, Morning Comes / Calorie Mate "Midnight Train"
A whole year of a student's life flows past the window of a night train. Carrying both the things they gave their all to and the things left unfinished, the train still keeps running toward morning.
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PENNY | The Wish | 2022
Just Seven Sentences Became the Voice of a Lost Generation / PENNY "The Wish"
At Christmas 2021, German supermarket PENNY made a three-minute film. A son asks his mother an offhand question, and she answers: she wishes he could get his youth back. All of it—the late nights, the heartbreak, the adventures sneaking out—everything the pandemic took away.
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ポカリスエット | でも君が見えた | 2021
CG? Not CG? Who cares either way / POCARI SWEAT "But I Saw You"
A clever debate over "Is it CG or not?" matters a hundred million times less than that first "whoa" the moment you watch it.
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カロリーメイト | My Way | 2020
Sound pulls you right back to those days / CALORIEMATE "My Way"
The song and the sound effects here are just amazing. Listening to them yanks you straight back to that time in your life. Which tells you something: those sounds don't really exist (much) in the adult world.
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キリン 午後の紅茶 | わたしらしいって、最強だ。夏 | 2019
It's okay for a teenage summer to look like this / KIRIN Gogo no Kocha "Being myself is the strongest thing. Summer"
This feels so now. Really now. Four high school girls from different schools and different backgrounds meet on social media and form a band. That kind of realness feels like it's bottled up the air of 2019.
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カロリーメイト | 心の声 | 2018
The World Is Telling You to Keep Going / CalorieMate "Inner Voice"
I think it's fair to call this one a winter tradition by now. This is the fifth installment of CalorieMate's commercial series cheering on exam students. Another great one this year.
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キリン 午後の紅茶 | あいたいって、あたためたいだ。18冬 | 2018
What's Lost and Gained Over Two Years / Kirin Afternoon Tea "Aitai tte, Atatametai da. 18 Fuyu"
This series began in winter 2016, and apparently this is its conclusion. It's the kind of project where the casting alone practically guarantees success, but using the same actors across multiple years takes it even further. You can clearly see, right there on screen, what's been lost and what's been gained, and in that sense a different kind of charm emerges.
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日清食品 | HUNGRY DAYS | 2017
Destiny Begins with a Teaser / Cup Noodle "HUNGRY DAYS Teaser"
This teaser is too cute. Eisaku Kubonouchi's illustrations are too cute. The narration is too cute too.
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キリン 午後の紅茶 | あいたいって、あたためたいだ。 | 2016
"Your voice is way too loud!" laughed the senior. Viewers cried. / Kirin Afternoon Tea "I Want to See You, I Want to Warm Up"
A quiet train platform. A high school girl with white headphones suddenly bursts into song, loud enough to reach the skies over Mount Aso. There's a bit of a puzzle about whether Moka Kamishiraishi's character could actually hear the sound of a drink dropping from the vending machine, which leaves you a little unsettled—but even setting that aside, this is still a wonderful piece of work.
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リクルート | 卒おめ | 2016
Nothing has ended yet, and nothing has begun yet / Recruit "Sotsu Ome"
This is one of those classic ads I find myself watching again every year around this time. It captures that particular spring when high school seniors are finishing up, set to a wonderful Chatmonchy song, and every time I watch it, something about it hits me right in the chest.
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カロリーメイト | Mate | 2016
Running is beautiful. Memories are beautiful. Friendship is beautiful. / CALORIEMATE "Mate"
There are friends, all born in 1991, who shave their heads, run, show each other their backs as they go, and laugh — and just that is already a complete piece of film. There's a series like that.
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NTTドコモ | ポケベル「はじめる」 | 1996
It left a mark on almost every guy of that generation / NTT DoCoMo Pager "Hajimeru"
In 1996, a 15-year-old girl lying on an octopus slide in a park, humming a little tune, appeared on TVs across Japan. "I got a pager for my birthday," she said in a sweet, slightly lisping voice. Her name was Ryoko Hirosue, and this commercial turned her into an instant star.