In any military, no matter how fancy your drones or how snappy your fighter jets, people are still the driving force. You’ll always need a few more good soldiers, which makes recruitment an essential and very important part of armed services.

The Japan Self-Defense Forces, or JSDF, are no different, and eagle-eyed people can spot posters pretty much anywhere. As you may expect, the JSDF in various prefectures also have Twitter accounts where they can post recruitment information and interact with potential service members.

Recently, the Miyagi area recruiter garnered Internet attention by crafting a tweet based on a scene from the school girl anime, Love Live!

We understand getting the attention of high school students can be difficult. With video games, the Internet, and an unending supply of anime and manga, we’re amazed anyone even graduates.

The Miyagi area JSDF recruiter, perhaps hoping to appeal to the disaffected youth, sent out the following tweet:

tweet

Smiles!
We smile to your heart!
Together, let’s smile towards the country’s defense!
One! Two! Push-ups with love and smiles!

Japanese Self-Defense Force member recruitment smiles!

Ask your prefecture’s local office,
and they’ll kindly tell you all about the JSDF!
#SplendidFormula

If you’re a bit confused, you should watch this clip from Love Live!, in which Niko Yazawa shows her classmates a “properly created character.” After explaining what idol fans want (“a fun, dream-like time”), she demonstrates her…uh…unique character, starting around 19 seconds in.

“Nico nico” means “smile,” hence the abundance of smiles in the JSDF’s tweet. You’ll also notice that the “love and smiles” bit after the push-ups is taken directly from the video. So, no need to worry, the JSDF hasn’t decided to trade in their fighter jets for giant power hugging suits.

The tweet became so popular that it was even featured in an article about the use of social networks in recruiting in the JSDF’s member newspaper.

However, Japanese Internet users weren’t as enthusiastic about the Tweet:

There sure seem to be a lot of anime otaku in the JSDF.
The JSDF is so stupid. They seem like they’d just end up playing mobile games in a real war. Good thing they didn’t change Article 9.
Is all anime targeted at kids these days? It seems like anime for adults has disappeared.
It’s as if the JSDF is nothing but a bunch of otaku! Where are all the muscle-head jocks??
Well, there really are a lot of otaku in the JSDF. They don’t have anything else to do with their free time!

A bit harsh, don’t you think, guys? We have to admit, it’s certainly the cutest military recruitment ad we’ve ever seen…

Source: Esuteru, Twitter