Seriously Japan, really???

I just watched ダーリングは外国人 and a terrible commercial for a smartphone in japan. Both of which had a black dude (黒人) that I've seen in on ultra wifi posters in various train stations. Well, I made the mistake of asking why he was in those commercials/movie...and nobody can freakin tell me.

Does nobody else see whats odd about this picture??

 I'll give you a hint, it has nothing to do with the robot

Seriously though, Japan is not too big on asking questions, so it would not surprise me if this dude just showed up the day they were filming this commercial and nobody wanted to tell him to get out of the way of the camera.

Anyway, besides this mysterious black dude, the movie ダーリングは外国人 was okay, for a Japanese movie.  The first 30 minutes were kind of interesting, and I could definitely relate to a lot of the experiences.  It seems like every gaijin in Japan has a problem speaking Japanese.  Not because it's hard to speak it, but because as soon as you open your mouth people expect to hear English.  Even if you're the most fluent gaijin in Japan, nobody will 'hear' your Japanese.  Its a really weird phenomenon and this movie opens with this sort of exchange within the first 5 minutes.

The movie is based on a manga (or an Anime?), so throughout the movie they show little cartoon clips that look like this.  To keep the mood light, they also show brief clips of interracial couples (Japanese women and some kind of foreigner) who share little stories about their relationship.  That's a cute idea, except EVERY gaijin was a total goober.  The main character Tony was the only one who represented us gaijin in a good light. 

Like I said, the first 30 minutes were kind of interesting, then the movie kind of drags on, so don't feel bad if you fall asleep, I certainly did!

So if you're a cool gaijin in Japan, give this movie a try, and then go out and continue to be awesome to offset some of the damage caused by this movie.