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Toyota's Psy-style Waku-Doki ad inherits Japan's bizarre ad crown

A new Japanese Toyota ad featuring crisply suited businessmen driving into the jungle only to segue into a Psy-style music-video dance-off with a gorilla and natives is the latest car commercial to go viral. Jungle Wakudoki is the newest installment in a grand tradition of bizarre ads from the island nation that are by turns hilarious, head-scratching and occasionally even frightening.
Let's face it: My people are weird.
I'm half-Japanese and take suitable pride in my Asian roots, but even I can't figure out what's been slipped into the water coolers of the country's ad agencies much of the time - or the nation at large, for that matter. From Japan's ubiquitous obsession with all things adorable (kawaii) to its offbeat sense of humor and its bizarrely perverse and violent tentacle porn, it's clear there's a lot going on in the culture, and only some of it bubbles up to the surface in its marketing efforts. Much of the strangest and most amazing ads are for non-transportation products (e.g. laundry soap, snacks, energy drinks), but the automotive space has its fair share. This latest Toyota ad had me trawling YouTube for a common theme, trying to make sense of why these spots are the way they are. Scroll down to watch the Toyota ad in question as well as a bunch of other examples of Japan's most bizarre car-related ads and see if you can't find the thread that runs between them. Is it just that something's being lost in translation? Have your say in Comments.

2019 Subaru Forester Sport vs 2019 Toyota RAV4 Adventure: How they compare

The 2019 Toyota RAV4 is not only completely redesigned, but reimagined as well. As we detailed in our first drive review, the new RAV4 ditches the more car-like and uber-utilitarian nature of its predecessor for something that's more SUV-like and characterful. It's a new direction exemplified in the RAV4 Adventure trim, which specifically targets those folks who plan to actually take their compact crossover to the great outdoors. People who will get it dirty, use the extra ground clearance and store things on the roof. You know, the sort of people who would consider the 2019 Subaru Forester. It too is redesigned for 2019, but its transformation is almost unnoticeable compared to the RAV4's. Forester customers were obviously quite happy with the way things were. We got a chance to drive both the 2019 RAV4 and 2019 Forester back-to-back last week both on-road and off-road, so let's take a look at how they compare, including a look at their on-paper specs. 2019 Toyota RAV4 Adventure View 31 Photos Performance and fuel economy The Forester got a new, more powerful 2.5-liter flat-four engine for 2019, and it now comes standard with a continuously variable transmission. It produces 182 horsepower and 176 pound-feet of torque, which is pretty much mid-pack among compact crossovers. Crucially, though, throttle response is so sharp that it makes the Forester actually feel quicker than it is when accelerating from a stop — a sensation enhanced even further by selecting the Sport Sharp mode button on the steering wheel. However, in either mode, the engine's remarkable power reveals itself as the tachometer and speedometer wind toward higher digits. One must also deal with the Forester's CVT. Perhaps some may appreciate the smooth, uninterrupted acceleration that results from a lack of gear changes (nor even simulated ones as in some other company's CVTs), but others may find it unusual and irritating. Subaru's CVT is certainly not our favorite example. By contrast, the 2019 RAV4 is conventional with its 2.5-liter inline-four engine and eight-speed automatic transmission, which behaves just as normally and effectively as one expects. The RAV4 is also considerably more powerful at 203 hp and 184 lb-ft — both compared to the Forester and to the entire segment as well. As a result, its acceleration is stronger (likely a difference of a half-second in 0-60-mph time) even if it may not initially feel like it.

Toyota temporarily idles pair of Indian plants due to labor unrest

The Detroit News reported today that Toyota will restart production at two Indian plants, following a shutdown on Monday.
Factory labor, management and police in Asia engage in the kind of violent altercations that we're not used to, having almost entirely walked away from the overtly brutal relations epitomized by the Pinkerton Detective Agency and the Flint Sit-Down Strike. In India, a plant owned by a Ford transmission supplier plant was shut down in 2009 after incidents between workers and armed men around the same time as Ssangyong workers occupied a factory in South Korea, in 2012 Suzuki Maruti workers rioted over wages around the same time upset employees beat a ceramics factory president to death in retaliation for a labor leader's killing.
Toyota is the latest to company trying to avoid that road. The Detroit Free Press reported earlier this week that it shut down two plants in India after 11 months of acrimonious wage negotiations and arbitration have gone nowhere. Toyota said the plant workers in Bidadi, near Bangalore, had deliberately stopped production at times over the past 45 days and threatened management. The workers said they wanted their wages raised by an amount already agreed to by management, but that management had reneged; news reports weren't clear on the amount, some saying nearly 10,000 rupees ($165 US) more per month, another saying 4,000 rupees ($65 US), but reports agree that Toyota has said it will only go as high as 3,050 rupees ($50 US).