This Japanese candy ad is better than any Super Bowl ad

If the last 44 years of Super Bowl Advertisement are, brevity is the soul of the joke, especially when it comes to persuading football watchers to buy products and talk about them at the water dispenser. Yet, somehow, no bizarre celebrity-obsessed sportsball ad has yet come close to a certain epic 11-episode series of Japanese commercials about a toffee-like candy.

The commercials in question are from Japanese confectionery maker Sakeru Gummy. In 2017, Sakeru Gummy ran a series of candy commercials to fuel the hype for its 15-inch long toffee, aptly named Long Sakeru Gummy. The commercial was officially called Sakeru Gummy vs. Long Sakeru Gummy, but internet devotees of the pink candy simply call it the “Long Long Man” commercial.

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The plot of these commercials revolves around three characters: a man named Tooru-san (played by Kokkuri-san: Koi Goku Edition Actor Seiji Suzuki), his girlfriend Chi-chan (played by Kamen Rider Build actress Risako Itō) and a quiet but seductive chewing gum enthusiast named Long Long Man (played by Rurouni Kenshin: The legend ends actor Yukiyoshi Ozawa).

For the 11 episodes of commercials, Tooru-san tries to stay consistent with Chi-chan, who has strangely fallen in love with Long Sakeru Gummy. Unfortunately for Tooru-san, his advances inevitably fail when Long Long Man inexplicably appears on the scene while sensually tearing and eating a Long Sakeru Gum. To make matters worse, Chi-chan grows weary of Tooru-san and his lukewarm offers of fun-sized sakeru gummies and begins to crave a taste of Long Long Man’s deliciously long long sakeru gummies. Subtlety is for cowards.

Their love triangle charades come to an end in the final installment of the commercials titled “True Love.” When Chi-chan is ready to finally risk it all and abandon Tooru-san on her goddamn wedding day to elope with Long Long Man, Long Long Man shatters her hopes and the audience’s expectations with an earth-shattering confession. Turns out Long Long Man was after Tooru-san all along, and now he’s come to share his very long gummy bear with him.

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Super Bowl or not, commercial sagas don’t get any more compelling than this. That is movie theater that deserves to stand alongside other cornerstones of film history Martin Scorsese Goncharov. All I’m saying is that acclaimed rom-com directors like Richard Curtis and Nancy Meyers have been mighty quiet since Long Long Man was first released.

The Long Sakeru Gummies commercials were such engrossing telenovela plot devices that they won a bloody prize at the 2018 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. And there you have it, the best commercial of all time.