What I found inside was bread. Nine pieces of bread… It’s not everyday that I receive home deliveries full of nothing but bread, so you could say that it’s quite a momentous occasion.

It turns out that this is yet another promotional gimmick by Animax Asia, a regional branch of Sony’s Animax satellite network. They will soon be airing Yakitate! Ja-pan in Singapore and other Asian countries where the channel operates. In Singapore, they have partnered up with BreadTalk to promote the show.

BreadTalk is a really popular bread and pastry franchise in Singapore. It was founded in 2000 and has now expanded to other Asian countries. You can read about the in-store promotions on Anime Desho Desho?.

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By the way, if you’ve not heard of Yakitate! Ja-pan, it is an anime/manga series about people making bread. That’s about it. It’s also oddly successful, but not my cup of tea. The “Ja-pan” part in the title is a pun as “pan” also means bread in Japanese.

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While I think it’s great that Animax Asia has recently been going all out to engage the anime fan community in Singapore (as opposed to the other guy), I question the effectiveness of their chosen methods. Of course, I am grateful for the free bread and all, but I would’ve preferred something that is more relevant to the series itself…

But I guess this can’t be helped. Animax Asia is just a cable channel and not a DVD distributor, so they are disadvantaged by the fact that they don’t have actual physical product samples which they can give away to reviewers. Still, I wonder if there are better ways to go about this whole viral marketing approach.

That said, I was feeling particularly lazy to buy dinner today, so the timing is just perfect! Thanks for the free bread guys! :P

On another note, this is the only real reason why you should watch Yakitate! Ja-pan:

The bread came with a two-page press release but oddly the air schedule is nowhere to be found. According to the website, Yakitate! Japan will start airing on Animax Asia from 28th November at 8.00pm. So uh, watch it! If you want to… Or something.

I can’t believe I am selling out for bread. This blog has hit a new low.

Anyway, Animax is giving away FIVE free Jigoku Shoujo (Girl From Hell) handphone straps to readers of this blog (and apparently a few others). Contest details after the break.

Hello to all readers of DarkMirage.com

Here’s your chance own one of these cool Jigoku Shoujo: Girl From Hell handphone danglies!
(Picture)

There are 5 of these lovely danglies to be won!

All you have to do is e-mail me at (*snip* contest is over, move along) with the answers to the following questions:

1. What are the names of Enma Ai’s 3 assistants?
2. Name one other anime series being shown on Animax

• Do include your name, e-mail and address as well as where you saw this giveaway from i.e DarkMirage.com
• If there are more than 5 correct entries, winners will be chosen at a first-come-first-serve basis, based on the e-mail timestamp.
• Winners will be notified via e-mail and have the danglies posted to them!
• Only one dangly winner per entry.
• This giveaway will end on 2pm Singapore time on 28th October!

So hurry and submit your answers now!

Uh, yeah… Personally I don’t really like the design. But hey, it’s free!