Pepsiman
You must add a |reason= parameter to this Cleanup template – replace it with {{Cleanup|May 2006|reason=<Fill reason here>}}, or remove the Cleanup template.
Pepsiman is the brainchild of Pepsi's Japanese corporate branch, who were trying to come up with a catchy, attention-gathering mascot to sell their product. After hiring Canadian comic book artist Travis Charest to design a character sometime around the mid 1990s, commercials depicting a CGI superhero were unleashed on the Japanese population. In the years following movies like Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park, the ability to render more powerful graphics cheaply and easily enabled these commercials to be created in abundance. A total of 12 were created, broken into three arcs.
Origins
The commercials
The plots, if they could be called that, were very simplistic. But, they got the point across so everyone understood the problem and solution.
- A single/group of people needed Pepsi for any variety of reasons.
- The theme music would start, and you would see Pepsiman come out of nowhere.
- A closeup of Pepsiman "pshaaa"-ing (more on this later) the Pepsi to the wanting strangers.
- Some horrible, yet amusing, fate would then befall Pepsiman.
- The commercial would end with a Pepsi can mimicking the fate of our superhero.
Each commercial averaged 0:30 seconds, with a few hitting the 1:00 minute mark. They fit an amazing amount of action into a few of them, having Pepsiman behaving at times like an extreme sports nut; surfing and snowboarding to name a few of his entrances.
His strengths
Calling Pepsiman a superhero is really stretching the definition of the word. He doesn't fly, have heat vision, adamantium claws, or telekinesis. But he does wear a heavy silver chain around his neck. While his form is that of a top peak athletic male, he has no distinguishing facial features (other than a mouth, which manifests infrequently). He is, however, completely composed of some metallic silver compound (think T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day), with a distinguishing Pepsi logo on his chest. Hence, the product placement. He runs about as fast as a professional sprinter could, and somehow manifests Pepsi out of thin air.
In other words, when he is ready to deliver Pepsi unto the masses seeking out his help, his mouth forms into an 'O', and with the sound of carbonation escaping a bottle of soda (hence, the pshaa sound), a bottle or can of Pepsi appears in the "victims'" hands. Everyone cheers and hoorahs. The day is saved, and he continues on to wherever he goes when the day is saved.
His weaknesses
After delivering the crisp, refreshing beverage, some cruel and painful fate would always occur to him. Whether it's trying to leap through the window of a house, only to hit his head on the frame, or run toward the entrance of a fast food restaurant when the cashier told customers they "ran out of Pepsi", only to start his pshaa and smack into the clear Plexiglas doors, an odd ending never fails to manifest for Pepsiman. There have been more serious finishes, like a crippling fall off the side of a snow-covered mountain, as he yells falling over the ledge. There is no blood or gore, so the result is slapstick in tone.
When mentioned that the commercial endings always show a Pepsi can mimicking what happened to our Pepsiman, it was being said quite literally. When he bangs his head on the top of the window frame, the Pepsi can has a dent on the top rim of the can. It's very creative without being over the top.
Pepsi Convoy
With the release of the Japanese Exclusive Transformers toy Pepsi Convoy, more of Pepsiman's origin was revealed. Apparently, the metallic silver compound Pepsiman is made of was developed by NASA, and was called "sentient metal". Pepsiman was created when the "sentient metal" fused with Pepsi Cola. It is shown that Pepsi Convoy is made from this same living metal when a sample was given to the Autobots. Despite having the same mission in life (bring cool refreshing soda to thirsty sentients everywhere, thanks to his CO2 gun and "bottle station" trailer), an expanded version of the toy's bio revealed by the writer reveals that Pepsi Convoy is not in fact a new form of Pepsiman, but could probably be considered a brother or cousin. Whether or not Pepsi Convoy has the same lack of coherent speech and lack of luck is unknown.
Costumes
Pepsiman took on three different outfits, each one representing the current style of the Pepsi can in distribution.
- 1st - Red vertical stripe covering the middle third of his body, save for the head and neck. The rest was all silver, and the Pepsi logo on the chest. This matched the very early 90's Pepsi can of the red, white and blue vertical design.
- The first five commercials occupied this outfit.
- 2nd - A 70% blue/30% silver outfit, with the blue from the feet up to the chest, and sloped on a 45 degree angle; said Pepsi stayed the same. This matched the mid 90's change of Pepsi can with the mostly blue look.
- The next five commercials occupied this outfit.
- 3rd - The most recent version is exactly like the second design, but now he has a lemon covering his head. He also gained the ability to speak, uttering the word "no" in a reverb, robotic sort of way. This, to no surprise, was to advertise the new Pepsi Twist lemon hybrid that came out on the market back in 2003.
- The final two commercials occupied this outfit.
Other appearances
Pepsiman made two more notable appearances, this time in the video game world. This makes him only the second (and to date, last) soft drink mascot to star in a video game, after Cool Spot.
Fighting Vipers
In 1996, the Sega Saturn came out with a home conversion of the 1995 fighting game Fighting Vipers, by development company Sega-AM2. Pepsiman was a secret character. He used breakdancing-type techniques to attack and defend himself, and had the 1st costume.
Unfortunately, while the game itself made it over to the United States and Europe, all the Pepsi logos were removed from the original game and Pepsiman's character was not included. The Fighting Vipers sequels Fighters Megamix and Fighting Vipers 2 were not created with the Pepsi license. And the 2005 Japan-only Mobile version and PlayStation 2 emulation Sega Ages 2500 Vol.19 Fighting Vipers contains the Pepsi logos but not the Pepsiman guest character. As a result the original Fighting Vipers became a highly coveted import gamer's collectible.
Pepsiman, the video game
Again, in 1999, a Japanese gaming company by the name of KID (Kindle Imagine Develop) created a video game for the PlayStation entitled Pepsiman. It basically expanded on the same type of adventures that Pepsiman encountered in the commercials. The game itself was a hybrid of the old NES game Paperboy and PlayStation game Crash Bandicoot. By default, you had Pepsiman's 2nd costume on, but by beating it you had the ability to unlock his 1st costume for use as well. The game also employed an offbeat interlude narrator between stages that has to be seen to be completely understood.
Unfortunately, this game only came out for the Japanese PlayStation as well, but was easier to find in import game collector circles.
Pepsiwoman
There is, in fact, a female version of our carbonated superhero. Only one commercial was made to the public's knowledge, and she came into being during the Pepsi Twist promotions. The most distinguishing feature about the female version from her male counterpart is her completely metallic silver body with no markings, save for the Pepsi logo, and her extremely large cup size proportions, bordering on physically ridiculous.