Shinya Tsukamoto... and La Toya Jackson???

by Chris MaGee

Here was a fun little item that was brought to my attention this morning... a fun little item with a very strange back story. Below you'll find two Japanese Nikon camera commercials from 1986 featuring La Toya Jackson. La Toya Jackson is strange enough, but that's not the strange part of this story. It's who directed these two commercials. According to Keiko Kusakabe these were directed by a young Shinya Tsukamoto around the same time as he was filming his early 8mm science fiction film "The Adventure of Denchu Kozo". How does Kusakabe know this? She's not only the producer of Tsukamoto's 2004 film "Vital", but also a founder of Tokyo production company There's Enterprise Inc. and a longtime Tsukamoto collaborator.

Those masked photograhers/ breakdancers are Tsukamoto-esque, but it doesn't appear that Jackson mutates into a machine at any point during these TV spots. Check out the commercials yourself to confirm this fact.