Look how EA is promoting its game Dante's Inferno in Japan, a tipster wrote. If only it was that simple.
The gentleman in the Dante outfit is named...Dante. Dante Carver, actually. EA Japan roping in Dante Carver, a well known TV "talent", to appear at this promotional event for Dante's Inferno is quite clever.
In Japan, television commercials are a big deal. You can tell how popular a celebrity is by the number and types of commercials they appear in. So take fashion model Yuri Ebihara. A few years back she was in ads constantly. Now, she seems to have vanished. So where it be popstar Takuya Kimura or actress Yukie Nakama, celebrities stay in the public eye by selling products. There is even a magazine in Japan devoted to covering commercials.
While Carver appeared at this Dante's Inferno event and even in a Konami stage show at last year's Tokyo Game Show, this kind of work is small potatoes for him. His big break came in 2006 when he began appearing in a series of ads for mobile phone carrier SoftBank. The series of ads to promote SoftBank's "White Plan" discount. As game translator and author Matt Alt points out, "white" is a word all Japanese know and it has pure connotations.

The ads have been running for years and center around "The White Family". There's the mother (played by elegant actress wife of Earthbound creator Shigesato Itoi, Kanako Higuchi), the daughter (played by extremely popular actress Aya Ueto), the older brother (played by the previously mentioned Carver) and the father (played by a white dog). Carver is the yosougai (unforeseen) element in the ad.
In Japan, the ads have been a hit. And recently, American film director Quentin Tarantino appeared as [video=youtube;dg-jabBZGq0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N139ZJJ4drw"]the kooky uncle[/URL]. Tarantino's appearance got me think — subconsciously, maybe, about one of the most controversial films about American racism during the 1980s. A film that was viewed as being so risky, that it was shelved by the studio Paramount Pictures. That film was war to prostitution to, yes, here.[/I]
[Pic, Pic, Pic http://[URL="http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews43/white%20dog%20criterion/800%20white%20dog%20fullerPDVD_018.jpg"]Pic[/URL]]


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