Commercial: "I Am A Dick"

I can't make up stuff this funny. The rest of the cherry blossom photos will have to wait because I just saw a TV commercial so ridiculous that my fingers have immediately begun blogging about it involuntarily. First, a little back story.

There is this Japanese loan company called Dick. Dick (the most logical spelling of its name, since it is spelled ディック -- Dikku -- in katakana) started out with the name Ike (アイク -- Aiku), until one day, without warning, they started airing this TV ad announcing that their new name would be Dick. Fiancee (then Girlfriend) and I immediately recognized this as one of the worst name changes possible and laughed about it for a long time.

More recently, Dick started a campaign with the English catchphrase "I am a hero." The ads feature images of individuals whose lives have been made exciting and fun by borrowing money at ludicrous interest rates and a Japanese sub-slogan which translates roughly as "Because you are the main character." When I saw these ads, I thought this new catchphrase was a step in the right direction. Anything's better than relying on the strength of your company's name alone, when your company's name happens to be Dick.

Unfortunately, the commercial I saw tonight is a giant leap in the wrong direction. We see some footage of a young business man looking intrepid and financially confident. A male voice-over says, "Boku wa..." and there is an English translation of his voice-over on the screen. Next we see a similarly empowered-looking female on the screen, and a female voice says, "Atashi wa..." with the accomanying English translation.

Now, had I translated "Boku wa" and "Atashi wa" to English, I'd have come up with "I am." Makes sense, considering Dick's previous "I am a hero" campaign. But the English on the screen when these people speak says, "I am a..."with the article "a" included on the end.

You can see where this is going. After a couple repeats of the voice-over and English translation "I am a..." the commercial ends and we are shown the name of the company in big katakana letters: Dick.

"I am a Dick."

I don't have a video of this commercial, but some other observant Japan blogger is bound to pick up on this and post the commercial on YouTube. I'll keep a watchful eye out for it.