Israel Attracts Japanese Tourists With Creepy Animations

What better way to attract Japanese tourists to your country than with anime? Well, I would have to be Japanese to know for sure whether or not it would work. The Israeli Embassy in Japan has created a series of haunting and delightfully weird animations to encourage Japanese to visit Israel, as reported by Heeb. Saki and Noriko, two animated sisters, decide to go to Israel for fun and adventure.

The odd thing is, they only seem to be spectators and really can’t do much, as they look out into a scene that is a real life photo of a port in Eilat, for instance, or the beach in Tel Aviv, and remark on how wonderful it is without really being able to participate, since they are trapped in the world of animation and the scenes are actual photos.

The women, who inexplicably have red arrows shooting out of their heads whenever they get excited about something, seem to drink a lot of wine. Most of the action takes place on the plane or in a bar. But then again, that is the experience of many tourists. Sometimes, for no reason at all, there is an egg-shaped bird that speaks like it is blowing bubbles and whose body has an Israeli flag design on it. His name is Shalom Chan, and he was created last year by the Embassy.

Apparently, this Israeli anime is quite popular in Japan, at least that’s what the embassy spokesman Ronen Mezdinni told Ynet, “The feedback we are getting for the project is unprecedented. The show is receiving massive media attention all around Japan. The main goal is to showcase lighter and original aspects of Israeli society while paying homage and respect to Japanese culture.”

The first installment is on YouTube. It is in Japanese, but can be watched with the closed-caption option.