Product Placement / Anime & Manga

"Of course! A refreshing, ice-cold Pepsi™ is just what I need to track down this Serial Killer!"

Product Placement in Anime & Manga.

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• At one point in Inio Asano's A Girl By The Sea, Isobe is shown wearing a pair of headphones with a very visible Sony logo.
• The Christmas episode of Aggretsuko features Instagram heavily, with Retsuko finally getting hooked on it by her Tsunoda, her social media obsessed coworker. It isn't necessarily seen as a good thing, as Haida notes that Instagram probably won't like the episode.
• Ah! My Goddess pays focus to Keiichi's BMW RS54 motorbike on numerous occasions, even featuring it front and center for one of the later episodes of the anime.
• Akiba's Trip features a lot of different actual games, manga, and other otaku interests, but episode 5 revolves around a Street Fighter V tournament and features actual gameplay footage.
• Alice & Zoroku Episode 3 has a scene set in a Carl's Jr. restaurant, Episode 5 features a Snickers candy bar.
• Area 88:
  • Both Rocky (1986 OVA) and Makoto Shinjo (2004 series) use Nikon cameras, and even make a point to mention this in dialogue early on (which is accurate enough: Photography equipment can get rather expensive, and much of it is not compatible between brands, causing folks to get rather invested in a particular brand as they put money into lenses and flashes and what not.)
  • In the third OVA, Mickey manages to free two cans of Coca-Cola from a vending machine by striking it. The camera focuses on one of the cans as he shares it with Shin.
• Asteroid in Love:
  • The former astronomy club has a Vixen A80Mf telescope. Vixen Optics is a Japan-based company that produces a variety of lenses, telescopes, binoculars, and spotting scopes.
  • The astronomy books shown in the anime are all real books published by one of the sponsors.
• Basquash!, by its nature as a basketball-playing humongous mecha series, has a deal with Nike, to the point where a Nike logo is prominently displayed in the opening sequence.
• Barcardi rum shows up in Black Lagoon during a drinking contest, and Dutch is shown using a Heineken can as an ashtray.
  • The manga also has a scene where Revy is hit in the face with a pint of Häagen-Dazs. This was Adapted Out of the anime version.
• The fourth chapter of Bokura no Hentai has the three leads eating Häagen-Dazs ice cream together, complete with a close-up panel of the containers.
• Cardfight!! Vanguard is a Merchandise-Driven series like many others, except for the fact that, while other shows have the characters just pull out new cards/powers/weapons and that's it, here you actually have in multiple occasions the characters stating that someone just played a new card that is available now in the newest set of booster packs, with the expansion set's name being said out loud. In particular:
  • During Aichi's first match in the National tournament in episode 17, he plays Gordon, Knight of Truth, with his opponent actually being shocked that he can already use properly a card that was released only some days ago.
  • A similar scene happens in episode 22 when Gouki rides King of Demonic Seas, Basskirk. Made more weird since almost every other unit he played before in that match comes from the same booster set as Basskirk.
  • Episode 25 is basically a huge advertising for the then-recent release of the Nova Grappler and Oracle Think Tank Trial Decks.
  • Episode 51 features a brief scene of a match between Emi and her friend: the latter plays a Neo Nectar deck, and at the end of the game she literally says that she played the new cards she just found in the new expansion set Awakening of Twin Blades^note Which indeed is the set where the Neo Nectar clan was introduced.
  • In Episode 69, Rekka plays an Angel Feather deck: Misaki is shocked because she never saw that clan before, and Kamui is quick to notice that the clan was introduced in the newly-released expansion set Breaker of Limits, and is amazed on how fast she was to get a full deck in a very short time after the set's release^note The episode was first aired in Japan the day after that booster set was released, by the way
  • In Episode 87, Aichi and Misaki have a tag duel against Team Lao, who all use Tachikaze decks. One of them uses the Raptor Colonel chain, and as soon as he rides the Grade 2 of the chain Miwa, watching the match on TV, remarks that they're units from the latest Booster Set Blue Storm Armada.
• In Carole & Tuesday, Carole plays on a Nord Lead keyboard, while Tuesday's instrument of choice is a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar. Nord and Gibson are the show's sponsors.
• In the Kid's teleportation arc of Case Closed, Gosho Aoyama snuck in a reference to Psychic Squad which is only marginally relevant and more likely to be a product placement for a Sunday comic (which Detective Conan also is), given that we're talking about an adult man (Kogoro Mori) who's never shown that he's an Otaku referencing a comic about young ESP girls who teleport. He awkwardly shoehorned the names of two of the three main girls into a conversation about a Phantom Thief.
• In Cat Planet Cuties, the characters eat hamburgers with very prominent A&W logos visible on the wrappers.
• A Certain Scientific Railgun episode 18 has a scene where the dorm supervisor visits a local Pizza Hut.
• In City Hunter:
  • The anime features M&Ms candy multiple times, whether in logo form on trucks or signs, or actually being eaten.
  • Near the end of the first series, an establishing shot of a harbor includes a boat by the name of Ys Falcom.
• Code Geass:
  • Pizza Hut has a very lucrative deal with Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion. While Humongous Mecha and Magical Eyes battle it out, Pizza Hut signs are in every episode and the cast eat pizza every chance they get. This gets slowly phased out over the course of the series, but one element sticks around up to the very last scene of the series: C.C.'s prized possession is a plush of Cheese-Kun, Pizza Hut's mascot in Japan. The Pizza Hut logos are censored out in the American release, perhaps because Pizza Hut U.S. wasn't too hot on the idea of sponsoring anime, nor one whose protagonist is a vengeance-minded terrorist. Cheese-Kun remains unedited, presumably because the only Americans who know what it is are Geass fans who watched the show subbed.
    • This is particularly impressive given that the show takes place in an alternate universe where the American Revolution failed and the Americas became the seat of a new absolutist British Empire after Napoleon kicked them out of the British Isles. Societies may change, civilizations may rise or fall, culture can vary radically, but evidently, Pizza Hut is the one eternal constant.
  • The series also had a somewhat strange placement of Soproni Kékfrankos, a Hungarian wine (even mentioned in dialog). While the name of the wine is completely correct right down to accent, the name of the producer and Hungary itself is a bit misspelled. Leaving us to wonder if it is a real Product Placement or just a particularly careful Bland-Name Product.
  • There are very prominent Biglobe logos (the leading Japanese ISP) where people are surfing the web. This wasn't translated in the dub and so flew right over the American's heads.
• In Comic Girls, the cast shop at an Animate manga store and the Sekaido art supply store in the second episode of the Animated Adaptation. Both are listed in the credits as sponsors; although the manga refers to a bland-named Sekaido.
• Crayon Shin-chan have an episode where Shin Chan and his class had a field trip to the Crocodile Bear-chocolate candy factory in Saitama, for no reason other than this trope. Said chocolate actually sells Shin-Chan toys as a tie-in.
• The products that are shown in every episode pf Dagashi Kashi are actual products that exist in Japan with brands from Glico and Meiji being prominent.
• Darker than Black features numerous advertisements for @Nifty, the ISP which originally streamed the episodes online. It also has the occasional Coca Cola logo as well. Like in several other series, Pizza Hut appears here and there (replaced by "Pizza Slice" in the English dub).
• The computer through which L communicates in Death Note is a Mac, although the apple logo is never actually visible. Likewise, Light's computer isn't explicitly identified but is recognizable as a Mac G4. Since the series was set 20 Minutes into the Future, it's a bit out of date now.
• Speaking of Biglobe, some (authentic looking!) computer screen closeups in the Digimon Adventure movie show Koushiro very obviously using that particular ISP to get online.
• In Season 2 of Durarara!!, Shizuo and Tom are shown eating at a Lotteria fast food restaurant.
• In Eyeshield 21, Hiruma is usually seen toting around a laptop. In some places, it is revealed to be a Sony Vaio.
• In an omake for the manga Fairy Tail there is, pretty bizarrely considering this is an entirely Fantasy Constructed World, a blatant part of product placement at the end where Grey hands the two of them a bottle of Coca-Cola. Yeah, it's just weird.
• FLCL Alternative features Kana and her friends referencing Dr. Pepper and using their soda bottles to make bottle rockets.
• Freedom:
  • The anime OVA was sponsored by Nissin Foods as part of an anniversary promotion — and apparently the only food available to the colonists on the moon is Cup Noodles.
  • When the action shifts to post-apocalyptic Earth, the only food available there is Cup Noodles too... but they have Seafood flavor! This leads to some serious Fridge Logic: are the people on Earth eating 200 year old Cup Noodles? If not, are there Nissin factories still operating on Earth even though everyone's dirt-poor? Since the dystopian government on the Moon is trying to uphold the Masquerade that everyone on Earth is dead, do the Earth and Moon branches of Nissin have any contact with each other? Or is Nissin part of the whole conspiracy in the first place?
• Most of the clothes in The Garden of Words are from real brands, with a Fila jacket making a visible appearance.
• A couple of the The Garden of Sinners movies prominently feature Haagen-Dazs strawberry ice cream, even tying it into the character development.
• Ghost in the Shell: Arise has advertisements for Microsoft Surface tablets, as well as a few appearances from the device itself.
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Solid State Society featured two Nissan concept cars which actually were revealed to the public for the first time through the movie.
  • One of the concept cars has a numberplate that includes the sequence 3923. Said aloud in Japanese, it's San Kyu Ni San (Thank You Nissan).
• Ghost Talker's Daydream features several brandname products at different points:
  • The first page of chapter 5 shows Misaki playing F-Zero on Gameboy Advance. She says she likes it and thinks about buying a link cable for it.
  • The same chapter shows Ai eating an Egg McMuffin from McDonald's and getting a meal from Johnathan's (a popular Japanese restaurant chain).
  • And chapter 12 shows that Kadotake smokes Malboro Lights brand cigarettes.
• Sunrise makes the list again. The Girl Who Leapt Through Space had logos of its toy and music companies flying by in the first few episodes, but then comes episode 14. There's a long scene of Nina, Bou and Min eating at a Pizza Hut, with the logo in the dead center of the screen.
• Episode 7 of Girls Bravo actually has a Honda motorcycle show as a plot point.
• Green vs. Red features appearances from McDonalds restaurants.
• The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya:
  • At one point in the movie, a computer boots up and we get a few good seconds devoted to the startup screen for Windows 95. They even used the Windows 95 startup noise. See for yourself.
  • Not only Windows 95, but the computer's blatantly a NEC PowerMate (for the uninitiated, NEC was the creator of the TurboGrafx-16, and it's semiconductor business fabricated CPUs for Sega back in the 32x, Saturn and Dreamcast days). They also made desktop computers and notebooks up until recently, when they decided to discontinue these to focus on the server and supercomputing sector.
• The volleyballs used in the Animated Adaptation of Harukana Receive come from the sponsor Mikasa.
• HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!'s twenty-third episodes features Hime gawking at a package of Pretty Cure Snack, a popular Japanese snack by Bandai that includes ring-shaped snacks and a Data Carddass card. ''Compare the product featured on the show◊ to the real-life equivalent.◊
• On top of it HIGHSPEED Étoile being a ton of real life product placement for various products like drawing software Clip Studio Paint and anti-energy drink Chill Out as well as companies like Honda and Takara Tomy are plastered over cars, the race track, and racer uniforms. King Records, Good Smile Company, and Yostar are also prominently featured due to their production cooperation. Even VRChat is in the mix.
• Once an Episode of Idol Densetsu Eriko features the main character eating from Kellog's cereal, and the cereal box is always more prominent in the shot rather than Eriko herself.
• Idol Angel Yokoso Yoko: An In-Universe example happens when Yoko is asked to be the face of a curry brand. Since she's never had curry before, President Yamashita takes her to a restuarant so she can try different flavours.
  Yoko: Wow♪ All of a sudden, my mouth feels like India♪! Wow, that's spicy!"...
• We see some iPhones with very visible Apple logos in Inuyashiki.
• In chapter 3 of Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu, when the tax collector, Gernot, first entered the Nobu and encountered his Trademark Favorite Food of Napolitan, due to the fact that McIlhenny Co. Tabasco Brand Pepper Sauce is in fact the condiment of choice,^*In fact according to this video, Japan is the 2nd biggest consumer of Tabasco sauce after the US it gets a plug◊.
  • One of the main characters has his bedroom decked out with Gantz decor, since he's such a huge fan. He even defends the series when his friend badmouths it. There's also some self-promotion going on, see as how Inuyashiki and Gantz are written by the same author.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
  • Battle Tendency ends with Joseph noting that despite his dislike of the Japanese, he's still happy to own a Sony Walkman (shortly followed by a close-up of it).
  • In Stardust Crusaders, while Jotaro has himself locked up in prison, he uses his Stand to swipe various items to keep in his cell, including a copy of Shonen Jump (which JoJo was published in at the time).
  • During its climax, Diamond is Unbreakable draws special attention to a Pepsi billboard that gets struck by lightning; the Animated Adaptation keeps it Pepsi rather than coming up with a Bland-Name Product. Also, Reimi Sugimoto uses sticks of Pocky as part of a fortune-telling game. There's even a shot of the box and logo.
  • Golden Wind: When Trish first appears, one of the items she demands the boys pick up for her is some Givenchy blush. The blush is later shown prominently when Formaggio sneaks into gang's rental car, complete with a lingering shot of the company's logo. Not surprisingly, Givenchy was listed as a sponsor in the episode's end credits.
• K-On!:
  • The girls use real, licensed instruments from Gibson (Yui), Fender (Azusa, Mio, and their amps), Yamaha/Zildjian (Ritsu), and Korg (Tsumugi). Sawako also owns a Gibson Flying-V and at one time had a Gibson SG.
  • In the Movie, the girls flew from Tokyo to London with Japan Airlines.
• Laid-Back Camp:
  • The Kikyo Shingen Mochi that is the discussed in Episode 2's Stinger is genuinely Yamanashi's most famous gift. But that name is a registered trademark, with the trademark owner Kikyoya showing up in that episode's credits.
  • All camping sites mentioned in the manga and the anime are actual commercial businesses.
• Love Live! Sunshine!! is basically an advertisement for the city of Numazu featuring local businesses and products. Some locations from neighboring cities are also featured in the anime.
• Macross Frontier The False Songstress has a FamilyMart branch seen when Alto tries to follow Ranka. FamilyMart actually promoted the movie in its stores.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha The Movie 1st:
  • Pizza Hut sponsored it, complete with official art of the cast enjoying some delicious pizza. Nana Mizuki, Fate's voice actress, even ordered a delivery just to collect a limited time offer special pizza box... with Fate Testarossa on the cover.
  • A scene in has Nanoha, Alyssa, and Suzuka playing a generic JRPG, before switching it out for a few rounds of Wii Sports. It was Tennis, for those wondering.
• And Pizza Hut strikes again in the 4th season of Maria Watches Over Us, where the logo is often prominently displayed in the background, even in an amusement park.
• In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Clotho Buer can be seen playing with his Bandai WonderSwan, called within the show the "Great Wonder Swan XXX".
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
  • When Negi's party was scattered during Magic World arc, one of the few things that Chisame was able to bring with her was a CalorieMate Block she put in her robe.
  • An in-story example: During the Battle of Mahora, (which almost all the students think is just a game), Chao, the arc's Big Bad pops up on the giant screens to do some Evil Gloating. After which she does an ad for the restaurant she manages.
• An episode of Nichijou contains a joke where the punchline involves Hakase encouraging Nano to bring along a Snickers bar as a snack in school.
• Yamaha is one of the main sponsors of Nodame Cantabile. Consequently, every piano in that show is a Yamaha and melodicas are referred to as "pianicas".
• In the first episode of Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!, Nyarko drags Mahiro to a bookstore where several manga and light novels published by GA Bunko (who publishes Nyarko-san itself) show up. You can also see posters advertising Nyarko-san, specifically its anime adaptation — which you're currently watching.
• Ouran High School Host Club not only uses Bland Name Products (most of which are seen in the anime), but in the manga we see Kyouya using an Apple computer with the proper OS displayed on the screen. He even has a few recognizable icons such as Skype.
  • The live-action version has him using an iPad.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • James occasionally has a set of reference cards if Team Rocket happens upon a new Pokémon. When 4Kids still had the dub of the anime, they'd sometimes cut these scenes out because of potential advertisement for the Pokémon TCG. Sometimes they would just remove the borders on the cards to make them look less like the real world TCG cards.
  • While on the topic of the 4Kids dub, this kind of editing got really stupid in the Advanced Generation. Most any things which had a picture of a Poké Ball on them were painted out (the ones on Ash's Hoenn Badge case and May's Ribbon cases were turned into red stripes). Oddly enough, this only seemed to happen in the US/Kids WB! airings; most international dubs didn't feature that censorship.
  • However, there's an even bigger product placement in two Sinnoh episodes—one has Meowth use a Wii Remote, and the other the Nunchuck attachment!
• Rebuild of Evangelion:
  • While the original TV series was very big on Brand X products, the Rebuild movies have plugs for Pizza Hut, Doritos, Yebisu beer (not Yebichu), and UCC Coffee (whew!). Most of these have accompanying packaging advertising the movie as well.
  • In the second movie, there is a Lawson Convenience Store inside Nerv Headquarters. Asuka also uses a WonderSwan-brand handheld gaming console.
  • Also in the original TV series, there's the fact that Shinji's DAT walkman has the Sony logo prominently displayed on it (and is in fact based on an actual Sony Walkman, said Walkman tends to command a high price whenever one shows up for sale on Yahoo Auctions Japan or Mercari despite slight design differences) and a Sony CRT TV and Mitsubishi Fuso trucks made an appearance in Episode 2.
  • The third movie mostly averts this, except for Kaworu's piano, which is made by Yamaha. There's even a lingering shot where we clearly see the logo.
  • This pops up again in the fourth movie, Thrice Upon a Time. The WILLE members are shown using Panasonic Toughbook laptops during the opening battle in Paris, Maya has an iPad with a visible Apple logo and Kensuke drives a Suzuki Jimny, complete with a prominent shot of the logo when he first arrives onscreen.
• The Christmas Episode in volume 3 of Sgt. Frog featured Keroro using the "Yahoo!" search engine. The logo was even seen in the panel.
• At the beginning of Spirited Away, a bag with "KINOKUNIYA", the name of a Japanese bookstore, written on it can be seen on it in the car Chihiro and her family travel in.
• Super Cub features the titular motorbikes prominently, both in promotional posters for the novel and in the official website. In a later episode of the anime, Honda's Ultra G1 Engine Oil cans are featured. Later, the protagonist buys a raincoat from an "Up Garage" auto parts store.
• Tamagotchi: Happiest Story in the Universe!: While they are at the Celebria amusement park, Mametchi and his friends eat in a food court and are seen with drinks bearing the McDonald's logo.
• Tiger & Bunny straight-out made all commercialized superheroes wear hero suits fully printed with real-life animation production sponsors. Which was lampshaded on the series' first episode.
  Jackson: You do understand who made you a hero, don't ya pal?
  Kotetsu: By sponsors, sir!
  Jackson: Good answer!
• Fuji Television gets referenced a lot in Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 but it's perfectly sensible considering it's news and as an earthquake happened the characters are often viewing it. It's still suspicious how Yuuki has a "Fuji Staff" sticker on his backpack.
• A chapter of Uchiha Sasuke's Sharingan Chronicles features Sasuke buying a copy of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution.
  • Similarly, the final chapter of the series features Naruto and Sasuke playing on a Nintendo Switch.
  • Another chapter also features an image of Sasuke playing on a Nintendo 3DS.
  • Several exclusive promo chapters feature Sasuke going to Jump Festa and the Naruto Art Gallery in Japan, and it features some of the exclusive merchandise you can buy there.
• Urusei Yatsura All-Stars did a collaboration with sports apparel company Onitsuka for some Tiger-Striped sneakers, including animating a commercial. One week after the commercial first aired, in the show's third episode, Lum is seen wearing the same sneakers.
• In Yotsuba&!, Torako uses a Nikon camera. The logo is even prominently displayed the first time she shows the device to Yotsuba.
  • In Chapter 88, Yotsuba's grandma reveals that she recently bought an iPhone, which she proudly displays. She then urges her son to get one too so she can use FaceTime with her granddaughter.
• Apparently the only piano manufacturer in Your Lie in April universe is Steinway & Sons.
• Mai Kujaku (Mai Valentine in the English versions) drinks Pepsi in one episode of Yu-Gi-Oh!. The reference was taken out in the American version. Starbucks coffee has also appeared. Many cards in Yu-Gi-Oh also happen to be shameless promotions for Konami games (Konami owns the rights to Yu-Gi-Oh) such as Castlevania, Gradius, Contra and even Metal Gear Solid.
• Yui Kamio Lets Loose:
  • In chapter 6, GRAVITY INDUSTRIES' "Iron Man Suit" that was sold by SELFRIDGES was shown in the possession of Kiito, which implies that he or his family bought it In-Universe.
  • In chapter 10, Yui in Black, Kiito and Garasha play Twister.
• Zombie Land Saga features some real-life buildings, and companies/establishments:
  • Episode 5 has the girls performing a reenactment of the real life "Drive-In Tori" ad complete with chicken suits.
  • Episode 7 has Lily and Yugiri promoting the new building of Cygames◊ in the commercial bumper.
  • The Maizaru Shopping Center seen in the background near the beginning of Episode 9 is based on the Maizuru department store in Karatsu City.
  • Iron Frill is watching Franchouchou's Arpino Live at the end of Episode 12 on TV streaming service Abema TV, which not only aired Zombieland Saga in real life, but is also owned by the same company that owns Cygames.

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Parodies (Star★Twinkle Pretty Cure ™):

• Love Aikawa from Bleach was once reading a Shonen Jump issue. The funny thing is that Bleach is published by Shonen Jump.
• Similarly Gintama has had entire plots revolving around Jump.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Jotaro's life was saved by copies of Jump, before either of those comics existed.
• Maken-ki!: During Minerva's introductory scene, in episode 7, it's shown that she has the first three volumes of the manga itself.
• The most recent translation, by Viz comics, of Read or Die had Yomiko using Jump in battle (and pausing to read them). It was hard to read the katakana, though, so it might have been Jump, or possibly Corocoro Comics, a rival.
• Superheroes have become a major entertainment industry in Tiger & Bunny, and the heroes themselves are covered in advertisements for real-life products. There's even a commercial spot for Pepsi NEX featuring Blue Rose which blurs the line between Ad Bumper and ad. On the other hand, several characters are represented by fictional companies. The characters get yelled at fairly frequently by their sponsors for causing collateral damage (which the sponsors pay for) and get criticized for heroics off the air as it means they don't get any advertisement time.
  • Product placement is such an integral part of the show that when Netflix removed all the real-life corporate logos from the show it caused multiple problems (including the OP where the camera regularly focuses on each costume's corporate logos now rendered as the camera zooming in on random parts of a superhero's costume for seemingly no reason, and making Origami Cyclone being able to get away with staying on HeroTV when he does nothing but exploit his walking billboard status instead of doing any actual heroics completely nonsensical.)
• Steins;Gate. I AM THE GREAT MAD SCIENTIST. DK. PEPPER!

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