so my youtube recommendations have been persistently giving me this video of old japanese commercials
i finally decided to click on it
and translating some of the comments led to the extremely weird revelation that these are all commercials for bubble-era japanese scams.
there's really no english info on this stuff so i had to turn to japanese wikipedia and DeepL
here's what i found!
Scam 1: The Bubble Star
this is the scam whose commercials make up most of the compilation.
the Bubble Star by Hara Health is a bubble bath machine.
literally that's it. it's a repurposed agricultural pump actually.
but it was incredibly expensive, and claimed all kinds of unproven health benefits. i guess they eventually got in legal trouble for health claims and selling bath salts with unapproved ingredients. they also might have been operating as an MLM? unclear
the company went under, but surprisingly, the bubble star product was purchased by another company and is still being sold.
Scam 2: Toyota Gold
Toyota Gold has the first two commercials in the compilation. i believe the news clip at the end of the compilation is also about toyota gold.
Toyota Gold was a financial fraud. they claimed to sell gold as an investment, but they actually sold certificates claiming a "security backed by gold." i'm sure you'll be shocked to find out they did not have any gold. they purposefully chose the name Toyota to sound more legit, although they aren't affiliated with the car company.
the head of this company was eventually arrested, but as he was being arrested he was stabbed to death. the arrest was being broadcast, so this happened on live television (don't worry, that's not in the news clip in this video!)
Scam 3: Orange Mutual Aid Association
Orange Mutual Aid has only one commercial in the compilation, the one with the little girl.
Orange Mutual Aid Association was a ponzi scheme selling investments with big returns. it was also run by an aspiring politician who siphoned large amounts of the money to fund his campaign.
the leader eventually served a 10-year prison sentence & was barred from government office. however, prior to the scheme's collapse he did get himself elected, and the japanese diet could not remove him from his position until his trial was complete and he was sent to prison. so he held his position under arrest for a few years.
Scam 4: Investment Journal
Investment Journal has the two commercials after Toyota Gold in the compilation. their first has an image of the actual journal in it, and their second is the one that's really aggressively american.
"Investment Journal" was a little hard for me to parse, but it seems like they were charging large amounts of money for Guaranteed Profitable Stock Trading Tips? there was actually nothing special about the tips & the founder absconded with tons of money. he was eventually arrested but spent 8 months on the run from the law first.
the most interesting thing for me about Investment Journal is that an idol i like, mariko kurata, got associated w it. i can't believe i never saw this before. i guess rumors started that she was the mistress of the founder because she bought a huge house for 70 million yen. she denied all involvement, but the rumors did not stop, and she retired from showbiz shortly after. also, it turns out she really couldn't afford the house as it ended up foreclosed. here's mariko, for context.
Scam 5: Coco Yamaoka
Coco Yamaoka has only one commercial in the compilation, the one of the couple in the bubble bath with the Platters song.
Coco Yamaoka was a jewelry store that also sold hugely overvalued diamonds to people as an "investment." part of the "investment" pitch was a buyback scheme where they would buy the diamond back from you at market price after a certain number of years. the prices actually only went down, so consumers were scammed. worse yet, before long, the buybacks exceeded new sales for the company, bankrupting them.
...
and i think now i've found info on all the scams in this video. thanks for reading! i find bubble-era japan really fascinating.
