Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Cursed Kleenex Commercial


The cursed Kleenex TV commercial.

The tissues company Kleenex made in the 1980`s three different Japanese TV commercials. Each of the advert had the song "It`s a fine day" by Jane and Barton played.
But, many viewers found the commercials very disturbing. Because of the strange things happening and the music, that sounded like a German curse, and there were claims that the sound of the music varied according to the time of day.
But then the rumors started...

This is what happened;

1. Everyone who made the commercial became ill or died in a strange way.
- The cameraman was burned to death in a sauna from a machine failure
- When the commercial was aired, not one of the film crew was still alive.

2. The actress became pregnant with a demon child and suffered from mental illness.
- She was forced to retire from acting and was incarcerated in a mental institution.
- She committed suicide by hanging herself.

3. The child actor that played the red demon died suddenly.
- The child was hit by a car soon after filming, he got decapitated.
- The child also suffered from nightmares and sleep paralysis non-stop for three days and nights.

4. If you watch this advert, you will be cursed and/or die.
- Many people committed suicide after watching
- If you play it in SAP the girl`s voice change into that of an old woman.
- If you record it first and then replay it, the red demon turns into a blue demon.



What is the truth?

I must say it is a freaky commercial!
And I love the strange rumors. 
There are so many questions... what is that lady doing? What is that creature? Is it evil or friendly? Where are they? And what does it have to do with tissues?


So let`s see what the truth is about this strange commercial!


1. Everyone who made the commercial became ill or died in a strange way.
 I can`t find any information about the film crew. The commercial was made in the 1980`s so that makes it hard to find anything.

2. The actress became pregnant with a demon child and suffered from mental illness.
 The actress name is Keiko Matsuzaka born in Tokyo on July 20,1952. And is... still alive and acting
 Among her other works are songs and a book of photographs of her in 2002. And she still plays in movies and TV shows. That she was pregnant is unknown. But she looks sane and is still an active actress.





3. The child actor that played the red demon died suddenly.
I can`t find anything about the child actor. If he is still alive or dead is unknown. I can`t find a name or whatsoever.

4. If you watch this advert, you will be cursed and/or die.
Well... I am still alive... and I watched it more then 20 times. I also don`t feel about killing myself.
I have played the song in different speeds, tones, ect. But nothing abnormal or scary.
I recorded and played it back, but the red demon was still red.


Conclusion:

So is it true? I am still alive and the actress is also. What happened to the child actor and film crew is unknown. I played the commercial over and over, and still nothing happened. I must say it is freaky and the song is so strange in this. It does mess with your mind, but that`s the only thing it does.
Sources say that there are three Kleenex commercials made. So we have the "Red demon" version and the "Angel" version.



It makes sense, the contrast of an angel and a demon.
But I can`t find anything about the last one! Maybe that commercial is the cursed one, and is banned and destroyed. So maybe we are looking at the wrong commercial... and is the cursed one still out there.

But if you think about it... Japan has strange TV commercials.



As the investigation gos on, other commercials are found. Check the link for part 2 of the Cursed Kleenex Commercial!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello,

I just stumbled across this post and I would like to share some info regarding the cursed Kleenex ads.

You mentioned that the only two ads you found were the Akaoni (Red Demon) and the Tenshi (Angel) versions, which run for 30 seconds. However, there were also 1 minute versions of the ads as well.

Here are the ads in question:

Akaoni (Red Demon)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG8vQhCQiAo

Tenshi (Angel)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuIeU-97xYA

The song featured in both versions of the Angel ad is called "Kleenex" by Geinoh Yamashirogumi and it's from their 1978 album "Ougonrin Sanyo (Exultant Pisces in Cantics Nostris". They were also the same group that composed the soundtrack to "Akira" as well. Their music is worth checking out when you have the time.

Also, according to some sources the Oni (the red thing you saw in the ad) and the woman are supposed to be pastiches of the characters Ten and Sakura from the comedy anime "Urusei Yatsura". At this point, it seems pretty obvious that the ad agency was trying to capitalize off of the popluarity of the show because the "Urusei Yatsura" craze was at its height around the time the Akaoni version aired (around 1985-86).

The Angel version, on the other hand, predates the Akaoni version and aired sometime around 1977-78 according to both the title of the second video and the post about these ads in Saya In Underworld.

As for the child actors featured in the ads, I have no idea who they were and I wish someone would finally release some information concerning that matter to the public. But sadly, I don't think that's ever going to happen.

Cyberator said...

Hey, thank you so much for all this information.
I had already posted the second red demon version. But I removed it because I was investigating it. I will repost this, when I am done.

But I never knew that there was a second angel version. So thank you for showing me!

I will make a post about this very soon, and thank you for all the information.

Anonymous said...

Whoa That was scary

Anonymous said...

I find it amusing that people found the demon commercial scary. The kid in the red make-up looks a lot like one of the devils in hell on Dragonball Z. And when you make that connection, it's impossible to be scared. Great post.

Anonymous said...

Hello, It's "the Kleenex commenter" again.

Yes, the exact same one who made the first comment here.

Sorry if I didn't e-mail you shortly after the last time I commented because I'm very cautious about giving my e-mail address to a lot of people for privacy reasons. So yeah, you could say that I kind of "chickened out" before. Please forgive me.

Anyway, I want you to have a quick look at this site I just found. It seems to be an archive of compilation tapes of sample advertisements for use in college marketing courses. Be warned because this takes a while to load.

http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/findingaids/mccannericksonav/

In the section that says "The 20th All Japan Radio & TV Commercial Council (ACC) Film Festival; Excellence Prize 2-1; No. 2 of 4. Undated. Umatic. TRT: Unknown." (which is Box 1), I noticed this listed among the ad campaigns:

"Jyojo Kinbury/Kreenex Tissue: Angel."

This left me wondering "Who is Jyojo Kinbury?"

I tried to do a quick Google search on the name, but only found the exact same site with the name and nothing else. There is no doubt that the ad listed is indeed one of the infamous Kleenex Angel ads from the late 1970's.

Who exactly is Jyojo Kinbury and how was he/she involved with the making of that particular ad campaign. Is it even a person and not the name of a company or possibly even an ad agency? I am assuming that it's a person's name, but I could very well be dead wrong.

I just felt like adding this piece of information here in hoping that maybe this puzzle can be solved.

Cyberator said...

Alright Don`t worry, just check this please http://thehorrortree.blogspot.fr/2012/12/i-want-you-for-horror-tree.html

The name could be indeed anything, ad agency, creator, someone from Kleenex, ...
But those are the angel commercial, and I have a feeling those are not made by the same crew as the demon version.

I am still guessing there is an other demon version we can not find!

Anonymous said...

Okay, now I understand the whole e-mail thing after reading the post above. I will admit that having me as a co-writer would be a nice idea, but I'm not too exactly sure what to write about. The only things I can really think of at the top of my head right now that would be suitable for this blog are the Purple Licca Doll and the so-called "crack monster" from Sesame Street that has been making rounds on the internet.

While this does sound like a great opportunity for me, I'm going to have to think this over a bit more before I make a final descison as to whether or not I should accept this job or pass it.

On the subject pertaining to the Kleenex commercials, I've noticed that mentionings of these ads have increased dramaticly on the internet since the Japanese pop culture blog Moroha made one of the first English language postings about them back in 2006. One of the theories that I've only seen on that blog mentioned that the child actor playing the akaoni no ko died of an organ failure.

Another common theory that I've found on some Japanese websites surrounding the boy's death was that he died from asphyxiation, which was caused by the red paint blocking the pores in the skin. I'm going to say that this was highly unlikely because it's really nothing but a Japanese version of the Goldfinger urban legend, which has been proven to be completely false.

In case you were wondering about the Goldfinger urban legend, here's an article about it

http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/goldfinger.asp

And on another weird note, when I once looked up "クリネックス" on a Yahoo search, I saw a picture of a phone card that had an image of the Akaoni version on it. So apparently, there must have been promotional items made for that particular ad. I wonder what else there was besides a phone card?

I only saw that image of the phone card once because when I was trying to look for it again right now to show it to you, I couldn't find it at all. Instead, I found an extremely creepy close up of the akaoni no ko's face, which almost gave me a near fatal heart attack just by looking at it. I am not making that last part up. It started to beat so rapidly to the point I swear it was going to stop, so I had to exit out of the image search results page immediately.

If there is any other updates regarding the search for the truth about the Akaoni and Angel Kleenex commercials. I will let you know by posting comments here and in part 2.

Thank you for being patient and taking your time to read these comments because they can tend to get quite lengthy.

The Kleenex Commenter said...

I think you're going to like this one.

After doing another search, I just found out who the production company and ad agency were behind the Angel ads. For these ads, the production company was AOI Pro. and the ad agency was Dentsu (Who were known as JIMA Dentsu Advertising, Ltd at the time). AOI Pro. has it listed on their site. Below, I'm listing the original site and the Google Translate version, which I'm using just to prove a point, even though machine translation isn't normally the best thing to use.

http://www.aoi-pro.com/works/awards/1978/

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=www.aoi-pro.com%2Fworks%2Fawards%2F1978%2F&act=url

As for Jyojo Kinbury, I found out that apparently it must have been an alternate translation of Jujo Kimberly which was a subsidary of the (now defunct?) Jujo Paper Co. The sites below provide some info about the companies and the mergers that occured throughout the years.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2840800104.html

http://www.risiinfo.com/db_area/archive/ppi_mag/1996/9607/sweden1.htm (Look for the article that says Crecia and Jujo Kimberly to merge)

http://www.nipponpapergroup.com/e/news/news12012601.html (These are the people who currently distribute the Kleenex brand for the Japanese market.)

Sorry, I couldn't find the exact information behind the Akaoni ads at the current moment. I seem to be having more luck with the Angel ads than the Akaoni ads. At this point I'm thinking of starting a blog about these ads and the results I keep finding. It would probably be much easier to do than crowding up the comments section.

What do you think?

Anonymous said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG8vQhCQiAo
C'mon guys stop trolling us, the conversation is getting creeper. And the other version of the ad is there in the recommended videos by youtube it's impossible not noticing it.

And well another thing, they say it gotta be at 12:00 am so the ad it's longer than 1 minute. I think, just passing am a stupid random girl~