Toyota Has Just Created Anime Characters Based on Prius Components and Features

These are just a few of the questions we would like to ask the men (because they are definitely men) who came up with this idea. We’re well aware of the “culture clash” notion, but this has got to go down as ridiculous anywhere in the world.

As weird as the new Prius might look, it’s still a serious car - it’s actually the successor of the car that was supposed to save the planet, remember? People who buy cars also tend to be pretty serious about who they give their hard earned cash to, so how are a bunch of often scantily dressed anime girls going to help boost the hybrid’s sales?

Well, you could try all sorts of medieval tortures on us, and we still couldn’t come up with an answer we’d feel comfortable sharing. What the Impossible Girls campaign (at least the name is right) does is take no less than 40 different Prius components and features (anything from the triangular shape to the transmission, suspension or the sound of the closing doors) and turn them into anime girls.

The only possible rational thought we can find here is that, this way, Toyota is making it easier for you to fall in love with the double wishbone suspension of the new Prius. But then those three questions pop up again: What? Why? How?

It would appear that there’s more to the campaign than just this spot. There is some sort of (insert the strongest synonym for weird you’re aware of) card game that uses the 40 anime characters, as well as a Prius parts audio catalog voiced by the Impossible Girls. Cool, right? Yeah, if you’re eight, maybe.

We’re not here to judge, but having a fetish concerning teenage girls isn’t exactly the most healthy obsession (as healthy as any obsession can be), especially when it’s spread at a national level and is endorsed by the largest car making company in the country. Not judging, just saying.

Apparently, this personification of inanimate objects or concepts isn’t something new for Japan’s advertising world, as other companies have done it before, but the scale of Toyota’s campaign must be impressive even for the locals. Too bad we can’t measure how many Priuses this campaign will help sell - that would be a very interesting social experiment.

Here's the general presentation:

And here is Prius' hybrid transaxle: