I have a completely unabashed love for Sega, and the nostalgia trip that Chu Chu Rocket brought upon also reminded me of another piece of Sega history that is just completely unforgettable: the random Sagata Shiro ads for the Sega Saturn. The Sega Saturn might have been a commercial failure, but this series of commercials for it just really rocked.

It features this guy named Segata Sanshiro, who was this hermit judo master who punishes anyone who doesn’t play the Sega Saturn. How fucking messed up and awesome is that? It was incredibly random, and this dude would just walk up to random kids and judo-throw them.

This series eventually ended with the death of Segata Sanshiro, which is pretty epic as you can see. I mean, he was such a pop culture icon that they made a game based on the ad campaign!

Of course, these ads never made it outside of Japan, which could possibly explain why the Sega Saturn did well in Japan, but not anywhere else. I mean, who could resist buying a Sega Saturn after seeing one of these ads?

Although, the US campaign for the Saturn did include this ad:

But it’s nowhere as rocking as Segata Sanshiro.