Japanese gum brand Sakeru’s commercial is a playful love story like no other

Confectionary plays a large part in keeping the It’s Nice That studio up and running and with a long-harboured love of Japanese advertising it only figures that when Japanese gum brand Sakeru Gummy’s latest commercial was released, it started doing the rounds in the office to a near Mexican wave of desk laughter.

The commercial is a series of 11 (!) vignettes featuring Sakeru Gummy lover Chi-chan and her boyfriend Tooru-san across a series of locations and activities — all of which are accompanied by their favourite line of rip-able chewing gum. This gum, however, comes in short and “looong” editions. Tooru-san, who is a straight laced gentle character, is always seen with a packet of the short Sakeru Gummy, and so is Chi-chan before she is exposed to the “looong” variety by the appearance of a mystery man known only as (we gather from his hilarious musical jingle), “Long Loooooong Man”. This mystery man, who has a goatee and is dressed bizarrely in a tuxedo and whose name we’ll abbreviate to LLM, appears in the distance, ripping his long Sakeru Gummy in two. Chi Chan’s jaw drops open. Unfortunately for Tooru-San, his girlfriend’s desires are more than his undeniably more conventional Sakeru Gummy can offer.

Over the next ten scenes which take place everywhere from the zoo, featuring a tall (long!) giraffe and elephant with a long trunk, to a shopping mall where Tooru-san plans to propose (Sakeru Gummy in hand) to Chi-chan, the LLM repeatedly appears out of nowhere. In the zoo disguised as a keeper and in the shopping mall bizarrely dressed up as a Donnie Darko-esque bunny – with long ears – holding “long looong” Sakeru Gummy. These episodes elicit much excitement and infatuation from Chi-chan and an increasing amount of pain for Tooru-san, aptly displayed in some alarmingly elaborate facial expressions of distress.

The final scene sees Chi-chan and Tooru-san blissfully wed and exit the church to the confetti throwing of Sakeru Gummy… but just as we think the story line has come to a satisfying close, LLM reappears, stepping out of a long limousine. We won’t spoil the final twist because quite frankly this commercial is six minutes of stomach-ache inducing laughter and with a horrendously infectious jingle to boot, you need to watch this. We challenge you not to be humming “long looooooooong man” for days to come.