Gackt has done a lot of commercials for various companies and this section will look at those works and the products in detail. I think the CMs show what a great actor Gackt is and how he is not afraid to make himself look silly (at times).

[One-time projects, such as the ones with Fleg executive monthly, Neue Men's, etc., will not be discussed here.]

Uha-mikakuto

Some of the products from Uha-mikakuto which Gackt has endorsed are Cケア (C-kea), e-ma nodoame, QUO, and puccho. Some people were surprised to hear Gackt endorsing candies since he doesn't like sweets, but he has mentioned in interviews that these candies are good for your health. Most of his cutest and funniest CMs are for Uha-mikakuto. Unlike his other CMs, where you need to understand Japanese culture in order to get the jokes, Uha-mikakuto CMs are usually very straight-forward and easy to understand.

Of the 4 products, he has done the most CMs for e-ma nodoame, close to ten in total. He appears alone in most of the CMs for Uha-mikakuto. One of the only exceptions was the 2003 commercial where he was reporting the weather and two big, burly guys came to carry him away. His most recent Uha-mikakuto CM was in 2006 for e-ma nodoame and I hope we can still expect a lot more interesting CMs from them.

Dwango

Dwango is a company which provides ring tones for cell phones, and you can download plenty of Gackt's ring tones from their website. They also have "ring voices" instead of ring tones, where you hear him speaking to you, saying things like, "I love you," "Thank you," "Don't go," "I want to see you right now," etc. He has only done a few CMs for dwango. There are two versions of one CM where Gackt was attached as a cell phone strap. Instead of a ring tone, he speaks up when a call comes in.

The other CM was produced at the same time as the promotion CM for the Sixth Day album. A life-size figure of him was created and submerged into a tank. In the CM for dwango, he bursts out of the tank, completely naked if I may add, to answer a cell phone that was ringing nearby. The life-size figure was auctioned off in 2005 and the profits donated to the victims of the Sumatra earthquake.

Fuji Color

Most of the CMs Gackt did for Fuji Color are with Kiki Kirin 樹木 希林 (not her real name). It seems as if the character she plays is a huge fan of Gackt and she always follows him around and tries to take two-shot pictures with him. She plays a very cute old lady in the CMs and Gackt's character seems rather tolerant of her agressive advances. Gackt seems to work very well with her and I think they share an easy camarederie. There was one time when Gackt was crouching on the floor, checking the film they just shot, when Kiki Kirin suddenly pulled him into her lap and made him sit there.

Kiki Kirin is a huge actress in Japan, having acted in more than eighty dramas and movies. She has been doing Fuji Color CMs far longer than Gackt. Though Gackt only did a few in the year 2002 and 2003, Kiki Kirin has continued filming commercials for Fuji Color and her latest one aired in 2006. She can be seen most recently in the movie "Tokyo Tower ~Okan to Boku to, tokidoki, Oton~", starring opposite Odagiri Joe. The movie was released in Japan in early 2007.

Gackt also did three commercials for Fuji Color on his own. These are more serious as compared to the funny CMs shot with Kiki Kirin. The first one shows a brilliant collage of photos of his character's memories, the second one shows pictures taken from his dog's point of view, and the last one was a shot of the sky on the day his child was born. All of them are very beautiful and artistically filmed.

The CMs by Fuji Color were continued by other celebrities like Nagase Tomoya from TOKIO, Horikita Maki, Ebi-chan, etc.

Kirin Fire

Kirin is a beverage company and Kirin Fire is one of their coffee beverages. Apart from producing their own drinks, they also import drinks such as Tropicana juices and Volvic.

The song used in the Kirin Fire CM, "To Feel the FIRE," was written by Stevie Wonder. Kirin had a campaign in 2000, where you could get the "Soul of Fire" CD if you collected stickers from the cans of Kirin Fire. The CD contains different versions of "To Feel the FIRE" sung by seven Japanese artists in total, and also includes a special unreleased version sung by Stevie Wonder himself. The seven artists are Aki Yashiro, Mariko Ide, Masayuki Suzuki, Kaori Okui, Tina, Hiroshi Itsuki, and Gackt.

Orico

Orico is a credit card company and is also one of the official sponsors of Gackt's concerts. You can sign up for the special "Gackt Card" which has his picture printed on it. Upon signing up, you get a Gackt original premium card. They always have new campaigns for Orico and that's when the new CMs are usually released. Orico gave away special Gackt mouse pads and Upty dolls during its 2006 campaign.

Gackt usually appears on Orico commercials with Upty. Upty is the mascot of Orico and comes in various colors, though it's always blue-Upty that appears with Gackt. He has slanted eyes and the top of its head is v-shaped, kind of like it has been cleaved into two. He's still pretty cute though. In the CMs, he always wins over Gackt in the games. First in the billiard and then the darts game. He is kind of like Gackt in that sense; he always surprises you with his skills or talents. In the latest one, you see the two of them showing each other their dance moves.

Takano Yuri

Takano Yuri is a beauty clinic, which means that the CMs tend to focus a lot on the beautiful bodies of the artists involved. Takano Yuri is also one of the official sponsors of Gackt's concerts. The commercials by TY are possibly his more famous CMs, and definitely his most-talked about CMs. He has done one every year for TY since 2002 and, apart from his first one, usually appears with a female actress in the CMs. Every time a new TY CM is released, rumours start flying all over the internet and there is speculation over his relationship with the actresses involved.

His first collaboration with TY was in 2002 and for his first CM, he showed off his very delicious body -- naked. Apparently, he asked TY to wait for two months when they approached him, saying that he wanted to train and make his body perfect first. His next CM for TY was with Eriko Sato (江梨子佐藤). This second CM took the comic approach, rather than trying to link the two characters romantically. In the CM, Gackt checks her body and sends her off to Takano Yuri when he finds a pinch of fat at her waist. Eriko has acted in a few movies but is generally more active in television dramas. She appeared in the hit drama series Densha Otoko (2005), playing the female colleague of lead actress, Saori (Hermes).

His third CM was with Tomoka Kurotani (友香黒谷) in 2003. She first debuted as a model and then became an actress after she was offered the leading role in "Boxer Joe" in 1995. She has been acting in a lot of television dramas ever since. This CM was widely talked about when it was first released, as she appeared semi-naked in the CM. There was actually two versions of this commercial. One with the two of them kissing at the end, and the other one without the kiss. The two are probably still friends and it seems like they kept in contact with each other even after the filming of the CM was over. I believe Tomoka also came to watch his concert that year.

The two commercials he shot for 2005 and 2006 were both done with Ryoko Yonekura (涼子米倉). She is also a model-turned-actress like Tomoka. Ryoko is the most famous of the three actresses he has worked with so far, and the relationship between her and Gackt is certainly the one that gathered the most attention. During the press conference for the CM, the topic mostly revolved around the two's relationship and even Takano Yuri herself joked about it. However, the two insist that they are simply good friends. They go out for dinner at times and hang out together every once in a while. Ryoko also said that working with him the second time (in 2006) was much easier because they knew each other better.

Ryoko is also different from the other two actresses in that she is the only one who has done the commercial with Gackt two times in a row. The story in the second CM is a continuation of the first one. In the first one, Ryoko and Gackt fell in love but separated for some unknown reason. A few years later, Ryoko is getting ready to marry someone else, but they obviously still have feelings for each other. At the end of the CM, Gackt bursts into the wedding scene, grabs Ryoko and the two run away. In the second CM, the two were stranded on an island when their boat shipwrecked. The rest of the commercial shows them playing on the beach and ends with them kissing on top of a cliff.

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