“The Shonen Merikensack” trades some economic relief for PR

The Shonen Merikensack distributor Toei has come up with a bizarre-yet-innovative way to promote their upcoming punk rock comedy while generating good will by saving Japanese motorists gas money. Gas prices have reached 180 yen per liter recently; the highest price in history. Toei is offering a special sticker people can put on their cars so that when they fill up at “Usami” gas stations they can get a discount of 5 yen per liter. There will be 900 stickers total distributed evenly to 9 stores nationwide. If my math is right that amounts to about 18 cents per gallon. Not too shabby. Check out this image (dead link removed - http://www.meriken-movie.jp/news_img/news_03.gif) for a cutesy illustrated representation of the process.

Incidentally, for those who read my previous article with behind the scenes footage of Aoi Miyazaki acting goofy in her role as the manager of an aging punk band, the official website for the movie has been uploading new footage once every two weeks since then and will continue to do so up until release. Volume 2 features Yusuke Santamaria and Volume 3 features Yuichi Kimura.

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  “The Shonen Merikensack” TV Spots
  Posted: February 7, 2009
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  Trailer - The Shonen Merikensack (2008) [English-subtitled]
  Posted: January 15, 2009
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  Teaser - The Shonen Merikensack (2008)
  Posted: September 29, 2008
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  “The Shonen Merikensack” release date set
  Posted: September 13, 2008
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  Aoi Miyazaki gets zany on the set of “The Shonen Merikensack”
  Posted: June 9, 2008