murakamistuff:

A few days ago we reported about the television commercials Haruki Murakami wrote for Japanese beer brewery Sapporo. Those commercials (four in number, not only one like previously assumed) were aired during the annual Tokyo-Hakone Ekiden which is a very popular race telecasted on Nippon TV. The four videos which are each one minute in length were produced by movie director Hirokazu Koreeda and voiced by actress Yukie Nakama. See them here:

Haruki Murakami’s Sapporo beer commercials

or on Sapporo’s homepage (only until the end of January)

The commercials are based on “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”. It seems like most passages were taken directly from the book and perhaps a little bit modified by Murakami-san to fit the TV format.

Those commercials were produced to encourage the people struck by the earthquake and tsunami back in March. Murakami is going to donate his writing fee to them.

See our ramblings and a few of the passages quoted from the book down below.

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