Asia, especially Japan, has an anime-ish "cartoon mascot" culture. All kinds of businesses have cartoon mascots, even "sober" ones such as banks. So do public parks (and not just entertainment and kids' parks), serious cultural festivals, business expositions, and public services.
For example, this is the sign for the police station in Gangneung, South Korea: http://atesk.org/photos/coptoon_640.jpg Japan also has some sexual mores and attitudes that we would find quite different, even shocking. This is the country where at one time you could buy alleged used schoolgirls' underwear from vending machines (possible marginal nsfw warning): http://jpninfo.com/3504 This Toyota ad campaign isn't aimed at us! With our cultural background, we have no way to judge how Japanese auto buyers will react to it. Saying it's "inexcusably bad" is applying our values, not theirs. That tells me at least as much about the article's writer as it does about Toyota. IMO, we should be glad that (at least from what I can tell) Toyota is finally actually positively promoting plugging in. 'Twas not always so: "According to Bill Reinert of Toyota, one of the great advantages of the Prius electrical system-in which the battery is charged by the petrol engine and using energy recaptured during braking-is the fact that you never need to plug it in and that it never runs out of juice. That is far more convenient for drivers, insists Toyota, which has opposed the idea of plug- ins." (The Economist, March 2006) http://www.economist.com/node/7001862 Even after they started offering the PIP, they STILL didn't give up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRG4VSuovNA If this ad campaign gets more Japanese buyers into plug-hybrids and gets them charging, I say "Bravo, Toyota, it's about time." David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
