Obviously, the Japanese armed forces felt that they should not to be one-upped by such measly institutions such as the Okinawa PD, historical capital Nara and also have adopted a few mascots of their own. I am pleased to introduce you to the image characters used by the Japanese Self-Defense Forces; the adorable "Pickles" and "Parsley"! I feel that they fully serve their purpose in making the military a bit more warmer and welcoming. They might look a big cute and cuddly, but mess with them and as representative of one of the top ten countries in the world in terms of military expenditure, they can bomb your ass back to the stone age. The Japanese Ministry of War (or whatever they call themselves these days) must be very pleased with themselves indeed!
Then we also have "Adsuma-kun", the image character of the army branch of the military. He might not be as cute and cuddly but compensates for it by carrying a rifle about three times the size of a conventional assault rifle; you don't want to mess with him. I have also received a highly secret picture that I have been told was part of the picture set taken in the Abu Ghraib Baghdad central prison but which was withheld to the media due to the sensitivity surrounding the dispatching of Japanese forces overseas...
But that's not enough, we also have the happy little lad "Mamoru-kun" in the local Osaka branch of the military. He might look like a happy little camper, but rest assured that he can take you on; in the air, on the ground or on the sea.
Now I just need to find the image characters for the different Yakuza families, motorcycle gangs, murderous cults and such, I'm sure that you're not really a real organization unless you have your own character!
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7 comments:
The Japanese military has clearly learnt from the mistakes it made in the 1930s. Imagine how much smoother things would have gone if they'd walzed into coastal China backed by e.g. "Nanjing Kun".
Oh... You really did have to go and do a WW2 joke now, didn't you? And not only that, you had to go all the way into Nanjing... Let's just hope that we don't ever reach the stage where Pickles and Parsley reach the savage levels of the Japanese military during some parts of the WW2 war...
Rofl. Too cute to be true. Pickle and parsley need a digital graphic revamp to make the mismatch even more epic :)
I hope they have they guys on their business cards (do military types have business cards?) and would love to see the reaction of foreign military officers on viewing these suitably deadly characters.
These guys will surely strike fear into the heart of Kim Jong Il! Much cheaper than cruise missiles, a perfect cost cutting measure.
And let us all hope that they don't ever need to create "Death March-kun" or "Human Guinea Pig-kun".
Impotentas comment is almost funnier than the post itself :-P
Vaneea - Well, don't let the cuteness fool you, they got the bombs and are not afraid to use them!
Aimless - I'm sure they have business cards, everyone has them (at least at a certain level in the hierarchy) and after the police business cards I wouldn't actually be too suprised... And yeah, maybe it's for the best that no concept drawings remain for Unit 731...
Martin - Well, don't you look like a complete idiot now that I removed Impotenta's comment, huh?
Is that... takoyaki that the Osaka mascots are holding? Really? There's nothing better than takoyaki to represent Osaka? How about a little manzai bowtie while they're at it...
Why do they even need to differentiate themselves like that anyway? Isn't putting Osaka on their hats enough? Tokyo certainly wouldn't feel the need to add any stupid props to their characters...
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