Upgraded campaign posters

OK, I did the first one here over the weekend. (As a riff on this real poster.)

まずはケーキだ

Curzon posted it here (currently on page 2 at time of posting) to this Japanese funny pics board, where it sits between some racist anti-Korean pics (NOT posted by Curzon) and uhh this.

Next, Ben’s friend BigJohn passed along this variation on the idea.aso-keikiAnd finally, regular poster Jade OC tried his own variant on the cake theme, which I think came out very well. This cake is no lie.

f_keiki1m_ec239b5Come on people. Aso’s approval rating is working on a new record low and the LDP is on the slow train to dumpsville. The least you can do is help out with a new campaign poster. Send it in at an attachment or post a link and it’ll be added to the collection.

17 thoughts on “Upgraded campaign posters”

  1. You didn’t change the url in the first poster! That was what I posted, which I think is key to maintaining your claim to the picture and promoting MF.

  2. See also what one commenter posted after the 爆笑画像掲示板 post:

    画像見た瞬間マリー・アントワネットの名言(迷言?)「パンが無ければ何とやら」がふと脳裏をよぎったのは俺だけだろうか…??

  3. I did change it. Hit reload. I noticed that comment to. I certainly thought of the famous “let them eat cake” myself, and now it’s nice to know how that’s translated.

  4. Marie Antoinette never said “cake.” She was referring to brioche: “qu’ils mangent de la brioche.” In fact there is no evidence whatsoever that she ever said anything of the sort. History tends to be written by the victors, and she wasn’t one of them. Aso’s not doing too well either, but at least his 首にする will only be metaphorical.

    Here’s a real quote of hers I found: “It is quite certain that in seeing the people who treat us so well despite their own misfortune, we are more obliged than ever to work hard for their happiness.”

    Incidentally the standard translation, at least in WikiJa (and about 31,000 other sources), is 「パンがなければお菓子を食べればいいじゃない」. Bit dull.

  5. Isn’t it just translated as “cake” in English because it’s from a time before we lost that particular meaning of the word? Perhaps if the phrase weren’t so iconic a more modern translation might be appropriate.

    “but at least his 首にする will only be metaphorical”
    Don’t speak so fast. Maybe he’ll follow tradition and “fall on his sword.”

  6. Kind hard to fall so that it hits your neck, don’t you think? Or are you talking about kaishaku? I wonder who’ll volunteer for that job. Koizumi?

  7. I’m not sure if that is the case or not – the earliest mention I can find dates from three years BEFORE Antoinette arrived in France, and is thought to refer to Maria-Theresa of Austria (whom I can imagine saying that, considering her prediliction for thumbscrews). It referred to pastry, at least in the translations I have seen.

    Anyway, talking of the Queen of France, I had a fiddle in my lunch break and came up with this image of two famous rulers discussing confectionary….
    http://img02.picoodle.com/
    img/img02/3/2/23/f_LetThemeatCm_7ad208f.jpg
    (URL split to avoid spam filtering)

  8. I do agree with the commenters in the link above that the cupcake looks pretty damn nasty. Couldn’t you have found a sweat little delicacy so common in bakeries in Japan for the picture?

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