Japan's 'Star Wars' sea chicken commercial

Back in the days before strict copyright enforcement, Japanese canned food producer Hagoromo Foods tapped the Force to sell a bit of tuna

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If we are reading the message of this commercial correctly, there would have never been war in the "Star Wars" galaxy had they all eaten Hagoromo Foods' sea chicken together. (Video by YouTube user ksoik)

God bless the Internet: A Japanese "Star Wars" sea chicken commercial from 1978 has appeared on YouTube. We thankfully live in a world where such old visual masterpieces are no longer relegated to the dustbin of history but are retained and celebrated in all their peculiar glory.

Hagoromo Foods is Japan's most famed producer of 'sea chicken' tunafish in a can. But once the company had successfully explained the meaning of 'sea chicken' to the Japanese public by the early 1970s, they hoped to do something more theatrical with their TV campaigns. And what could be more theatrical in 1978 than the unauthorized borrowing of elements from the hit film "Star Wars," which had opened in Japan that same year.

But maybe we're trying too hard to see parallels between Hagoromo's unique space opera fantasy and George Lucas' own. Nowhere in the "Star Wars" sea chicken commercial does the phrase "Star Wars" appear. And really, the commercial's 'Chewbacca' is clearly just a lanky bear acting like a monkey, 'Princess Leia' is a very short woman in a white robe and C-3P0 is a gold helmeted disco party robot.

Unfortunately the Internet holds very few clues about the origin of this "Star Wars" sea chicken commercial, so we may never know the backstory. We can, however, assume that this clip will not appear on the bonus disc of an official Lucasfilms DVD anytime soon.

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W. David Marx is CNNGo's Tokyo City Editor. Originally hailing from the American South, David studied East Asian Studies in New England and then worked for the magazine Tokion in the Lower East Side. After moving to Tokyo in 2003, he has completed a M.A. in Consumer Behavior, worked for an ad agency, written freelance for magazines such as GQ, Brutus, Weekly Diamond, and Nylon, founded numerous niche blogs, and recorded two albums on New York-based indie labels.