When you live in a country that’s as different from the U.S. as Japan is, it’s interesting to observe the many ways the “world view” of people here differs from what you’re used to. There’s that tendency for radio DJs to play a song and then proceed to talk over it, discussing what a good song it is or maybe reading the weather report. Or how Christmas carols are so fun to listen to, they’ll be played well into February. Or the unwritten rule that Japanese never, ever touch anything under their car’s hood, leaving everything up to the dealer. TV commercials are another area where you can see a lot of differences between the two countries. As a very general rule, commercials here are more about associating an image with a product rather than explaining the benefits customers receive when they purchase it. It’d be more common to see a man driving his Subaru Forrester through the mountains while an uplifting song plays than to hear a narrator telling you about new features in the latest Ford Fusion sedan. Since the Japanese market is so different from the West, it’s rare to see companies using non-localized versions of their commercials here, instread creating new commercials for the local market. Some of the few companies that buck this trend are IBM, which has made dubbed versions of their “blue bar” commercials quite well known here, most of Apple’s ads, since they’re so simple, and AFLAC, since that darned duck is cute no matter where you come from.

Hm, trying to find an example of a Japanese-dubbed American commercial but that’s not the kind of thing that makes it onto the web, I guess — too vanilla. So here’s a Japan-made AFLAC commercial from a few years back that made the career of Akiko Yada, a super cute video in which she sings “Think about it, money is very imporant…” with kids all around her.