About
Zen (Japanese: 膳), not Zen (禅) in Buddhism, is a trade name of a Japanese malt whiskey which had been sold by Japanese major brewery Suntory. Its TV commercial movies (TVCMs) have gained a cult following among a few of MAD video editors in the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND) since 2010.
Origin
This whiskey, Zen, aired 21 types of TVCMs in total from 1998 to 2004. All of them featured Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada (真田広之)[1] and had the same punchline: in serious situations or good atmosphere, he denies or disagrees suggestions/questions with quite cool face by this remark “Zenzen” (全然, lit. “Nope” or “Not at all”). Then, two Zen bottles appeared on the screen with his voice “Zen, Zen”. The most well-known version in this series is “A Singing Man” played first in this video below. It originally began to air in September 2001.
However, Zen’s TVCM series hadn’t been featured on internet humor sites till 2010s though it was indeed humorous. Suntory discontinued the production of Zen in 2004, and erased its product page[2] from their official website in the end of 2011.
Spread
The first MAD videos in this series was posted with simple title “Zen” (膳) by user Zero (零～ゼロ～)[3] on March 22nd, 2010. It featured “Termina Field”, an audiotrack from Nintendo‘s 1998 video game in Zelda series: The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.
Meanwhile, the trigger that led increasing of its popularity was not the video itself, but its naming and his thumbnail choice in his subsequent videos. That was because he had continued uploading several Zen MAD videos with the same title and the same thumbnail in 2011.
Around January 2011, other MAD editors who chuckle at this idea began mimicking his style and filling search results by the same “Zen” title and thumbnail just for fun, though each of them was different MAD video edited by themselves. Since then, the manner of Zen is a standard style in NND’s MAD editors community.
Screenshot of NND’s search results for “Zen”
As of July 2013, the amount of video related to this whiskey on NND is more than 450.[4] And, it is completely impossible to tell one from the other in the search results.
Notable Examples
Manner
- Before starting MADs, Run “A Singing Man” original footage for about 24 seconds from the beginning.
- Upload your video with the same thumbnail and the same title “Zen” (膳).
Niconico 膳Dangerous SeriesNiconico 膳
“Chronos” from BEMANI seriesNiconico 膳
I Wanna Be The Guy! parodyNiconico 膳
“Rainbow Cruise” from Mario 64Niconico 膳
2011 Zen MAD RankingNiconico 膳
Multiauthor Collaboration
Search Interest
[Not Available]
External References
[1]Wikipedia – Hiroyuki Sanada
[2]Suntory – SUNTORY WHISKY 膳 (Internet Archive, Japanese)
[3]niconico – 零～ゼロ～’s Profile (Japanese)