Tofugu.com

*This article marks the beginning of the “profile” section, which discovers fairly obscure Japanese people that should be ruling the world. The goal is to find someone new every week (or every once in a while), so saying that, we’ll be adding a “profile” category over on the right. Check it out for new people (weeks after this article is written) to get more.Today’s profile is the infamous Segata Sanshiro. Although I wrote about him over in English Koichiben (now very dead, thanks to Tofugu), I don’t think that Mr. Sanshiro got the worship he deserves. So to start things off, I’m throwing out a repeat, but hopefully you can forgive me, because if not, Segata Sanshiro will come back from the dead and break your little PS3 fanboy/girl fingers.

Segata Sanshiro was created by Sega to promote the Sega Saturn, and he did a good job of it too. The only part of the world that the Sega Saturn did well in was Japan, and it was all thanks to the ridiculous Segata Sanshiro advertising campaign. In reality, the Sega Saturn wasn’t that great of a system. It had limited 3D capabilities (most of the games were 2d) and it was very difficult to code for (compared to the PS1). In order for Sega Saturn to live on and lead the successful life it did in Japan, Sega had to come up with a clever advertising campaign…here’s his story:

Segata Sanshiro is a mountain hermit judo master who is constantly training with gigantic Sega Saturn consoles/controllers, carrying them on his back and punching the buttons. Occasionally he takes a break from his training and comes down from the mountain, tracking down those who aren’t playing Sega Saturn, punishing them with physical pain and yelling at them: “You must play Sega Saturn!” To him, playing Sega Saturn is the most important thing in daily life, and if you’re out socializing, playing baseball, or doing anything else, you’d better fear for your life.

When he’s not throwing men, women, zombies, and children to the floor, he’s taking part in other activities, often altered in such a way that proves Segata Sanshiro’s superior manliness over the rest of the world, including Chuck Norris. He’s won an Olympic speed skating medal (without wearing skates), single handedly won the soccer World Cup twice (though he kinda broke the rules), and can roundhouse kick home runs with pristine accuracy (we’re talking bare feet).

Thanks to all of this, the Sega Saturn did extremely well in Japan, even though it failed in America and Europe. Segata Sanshiro gained so much fandom that he got his very own video game (where you punish those who aren’t playing Sega Saturn? I have no idea) and his very own theme song. On top of that, Segata Sanshiro was so cool that he got his own action figure (ps1 pwning abilities sold separately). The strange thing about the action figure is that it had a “15 years or older” tag on it. That’s probably because kids that bought the doll would immediately show signs of puberty and facial hair, due to the emanating manliness. Eventually, later on, they came out with a Segata Sanshiro soundtrack, which sold an amazing 100,000 copies in Japan. I’m guessing people were too afraid not to buy it.

Well, that ends our first profile piece. There’s so much more information out there on Segata Sanshiro, if you’re interested. If you want to see some of his commercials you can scuttle around on youtube or just check the video below. Thanks for reading, and remember, Sega Saturn, Shiro! (or die).

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