People in the states complain about too much advertising. Well here in Japan it's 10 times what it is anywhere in the states. One of the most visible ways is in the number of giant TV displays showing commercials all the time. There are some at almost every major train station and popular area, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ikebukuro, Ginza, and that doesn't include the thousands of smaller displays at various shops, convenience stores, etc.

The most famous are probably the 3 big ones on the Hachiko side of Shibuya Station.

That picture only shows two of them. The one in the center is 5 stories high! For some reason, most of the time they only show something in a small area in the center but every once in a while they show something that uses the whole screen. The most impressive is probably a giant CG dinosaur that walks across the screen with it's feet where you can see the kanji at the bottom in that picture and it's head were it says "TSUTAYA" at the top. That entire thing including the "TSUTAYA" and the kanji is one big display!

They run commercials constantly, about 1/2 for music. Once in a while the same commercial will appear on all 3 screens at the same time. Looking at the 3 displays there it appears they are all run by different companies although I really have no idea.

The thing that prompted me to write this though is that just recently, J−Phone added another one to the Shinjuku area.

The difference between this one and every other commercial running TV I've seen in Japan is that this particular one runs nothing but J−Phone ads 100% of the time. Is that overkill or what? 😮