What kind of tranny in that car?
MANual, I assume.
Stick shift?
Well, it was a ballsy move.
Assuredly a dude. But a very pretty dude. Very. 
It’s a clever optical illusion. Look closely and you’ll see a car in the background.
You have to admit that they were thinking outside the box.
Thats Nuts!
“Austin Powers: That ain’t no woman! It’s a man, man!”
But perhaps not a man’s man. Or a gentleman’s gentleman. Not even a girly girl.
So I guess Toyota’s message is you should always check under the hood?
I’m thinking its more ‘bait and switch’ and while it might look good leaving, its going to piss you off when you get close enough to look at it.
(not that I was, but face it - if you were expecting one thing, and you get handed something else entirely, even while you may be happy with what you got, it wasn’t what you ordered)
I don’t know. What’s a non-american model look like? What’s an american model look like for that matter? We are what you’d call, a non-homogenous culture, after all. Unlike, say, Japan for instance.
Their next commercial will be an endorsement by Eddie Murphy.
Just like the dude…
They probably should have played “Dude Looks like a Lady” in the background…
The model is pretty good looking, but is not really my type.
While I’m sure I’ve seen models from other countries in American ads, there’s really no way for me to tell since all sorts of ethnicities live in America. Japan is mostly, well, Japanese people.
In fact, from the tag line in the OP “and probably not in the way you would think,” I thought the debate was going to be about using an obviously foreign model. Japan is widely rumored to be rather xenophobic.
(I say “rumored” to allow more knowledgeable Dopers to chime in, like maybe even the OP.)
This is odd in so many ways.
I will admit I missed the man thing until he turned aeound the first time. When you watch it the second time you can clearly see his man-junk in the trunk (he should have even selling volkswagons) in the pouch of his man-ties.
It was like a 30 second crying game. I wouldn’t buy the car because of that ad. And it has no homophobic reasons for me… I just feel like they are being duplicitous about the commercial, leaving me with a bad impression of this vehicle in general and Toyota specifically.
I watched that 5 minute scenes behind the commercial, and it’s not even an american. It’s an Israeli. Not that that makes any difference to us Americans. Everyone basically pops up here.
Has there been any reaction to it in japan, good or bad? I thought Japan had a pretty conservative culture.
The really sad thing is, I would’ve had the exact same reaction if it was a woman…i.e., “whatever”.
I do not and never have hypersexualized female breasts. I find “topless” one of the most useless words in the English language. I have absolutely no idea why the nipple’s visibility makes all the difference in the universe, and I’m especially baffled as to why the female nipple gets this treatment but the male nipple, which looks exactly the same…doesn’t register at all. (I seriously doubt that lactation has anything to do with it.) I find ANY equivalency whatsoever with any amount of genitalia, male or female, to be utter lunacy.
Total body. Up and down, front and back. Watch any Playboy video. It’s not a mystery.
As for the ad…well, nothing I didn’t already know. Japan has a thing for weird commercials. And androgynous dudes; they’re the ones who invented visual kei, remember? Don’t think it’s gonna help sell cars, but you never know.
It’s not unusual for Japanese ads to feature Western models. When I was living there (nearly 10 years ago, so things may be different now) then it was my impression that most ads on Japanese TV had Asian models/actors, but it was common enough to see non-Asians. It’s not like the Japanese aren’t used to seeing white people in the media; they get a lot of American movies and TV shows over there.