teh Forum

I was under the impression that they just put up signs for this campaign at Narita.

http://www.kanko-otakara.jp/vjc_cm/en.html

Thanks Koi-san. He's kinda a freaky guy.

Actually, the posters have been up in Narita & Haneda since at least January. I'd be interested to hear if they have any posters up or commercials showing anywhere outside of Japan. 'cause if I was trying to run a campaign to get people to come to Japan, I'd start from the outside. Welcoming them after they get here is not much of an accomplishment...

There are quite a few Urabon websites in English with young Japanese girls in welcoming poses, so it's not just posters in Japan.

The Yokoso campaign strikes a completely false note right from its name. Nobody has ever said 'yokoso' to me in 14 years of living here. What Japanese people say is 'irasshai'.

The video clip came from an american board where a dude said he saw it last week on CNN. So at least they are starting to take the campaign out of Japan.

It looks like this lady's son bought an Xbox for their home

....

Big cats in Japan as well.

db, it strikes me that you are really quite an acute observer of Japan. It's almost as though you have some slight niggling affection for the place.

The JR posters are indeed stunning. As you race past them on your way to your packed, bollock-cooking train that will take you from one grey suburb to another identical grey suburb through concrete shrouded subsistence ag-land, you could almost imagine yourself to be in a country where appreciation of natural beauty is matched by a pace of life where self-discovery is the highest good.

Those images chosen for the Yokoso website are all recognizable from the GeoAtlas Volume 2 stock photography CD-ROM series. It's just a horribly shallow, amateurish job, no doubt employing at least one ex-JET.

Where are the girls in boots, the dive izakayas, the roadside shrines and stuff that are far more typical of actual Japan?

I think they would have much better results with this:

....

That Yokoso site is truly horrible. I tried to reach some of the links to see what discounts the Japanese government was offering to people, but I just found some froke links to discount travel websites. I could've found better discounts just googling on my own.

In fairness to the campaign organizers though, the budget they have is pretty low ($42M) compared to other countries (Australia spends about $90M).
(from this article)