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Upon hearing rumors swirling around the internet that a search on Yahoo! Japan’s struggling search engine does something strange when you enter the words “death” and “die” in Japanese, our reporter went to check it out. Could Japan’s most popular online search tool have revealed the sinister truth about a household name?

Sure enough, as he entered the kanji character 死 (shi, meaning death) and hit the search button, right at the top of the results page is an advert not for a funeral home or horror movie, but for good old Yodobashi Camera, one of Japan’s biggest electronics and appliance retailers.

The headline of the ad reads “Death is Yodobashi”, which is followed by a brief description.

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“Death is Yodobashi. Death; free shipping and express delivery nationwide from the Yodobashi official mail order site.”

Awesome! Now, the next time my buddy in Hokkaido is having a birthday I can overnight him a fresh shipment of death, safe in the knowledge that I got the best price available!

While the name Yodobashi may mean little to some of our overseas readers, the shocking search result is to Japanese internet users about on par with a US resident seeing an ad for Best Buy that gleefully boasts the ultimate deals on mortality. “Think death, think Best Buy!” Hardly the image a company’s marketing division would pump millions of dollars into to create.

Our reporter tried again through the mobile Yahoo! site using the verb form of the word (shinu), only to get the exact same ad appearing. However, upon writing this article the same search revealed no advertisement whatsoever.

Whether or not this means Yodobashi has given up being a merchant of death remains to be seen. We sent a reporter to a local Yodobashi Camera to ask the staff if they have any death in stock, but she hasn’t returned yet. Come to think of it, it’s been a few days…

Original Article by GO
Yodobashi Official Site

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[ Read in Japanese ]