cup noodles trio

Are the (ra)men as hot as these pictures make them look?

Cup Noodles has released a spicy trio of tempting instant ramen flavors this summer and they are using a classic marketing technique to get your attention: hot and steamy…dudes. That’s right, 46 men with varying degrees of spiciness, not unlike the new ramen, vying for your attention and wanting you to choose them. In fact, as you scroll through their promotional website, you’ll hear the sensual sounds of someone blowing on the steam of the hot ramen noodle cup coupled with frequent, fervent pleas to “hurry up and click!”

▼ Do S Ethnic Paradise: Let’s go, to the spiciest of heights

do ethnic ramen

The 3 new flavors are Indonesian mi goreng, Singaporean laksa, and Thai tom yum. Mi goreng is a dish of noodles fried in oil with garlic, onions, meat, egg, chilies, and vegetables that can be found all over Indonesia. Laksa is a spicy noodle soup with meat and often made using coconut milk. Tom yum, a personal favorite, is a hot and sour soup generally made with ingredients such as lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, lime juice, fish sauce, and crushed chili peppers.

▼ Tom Yum flavor

tom yum

On the Cup Noodles site, you can click the pictures of any of the gentlemen begging for your attention. Once you’ve done so, you are taken to a page where you can watch a simultaneously hilarious and weird video trying to “arouse” your interest in instant ramen noodles.

Do you recognize that voice? It actually belongs to Suwabe Junichi, the incredibly prolific voice actor of shows such as My Hero Academia, Fate/Stay Night, Black Butler, Deadman Wonderland, and Fairy Tail to name just a few. He’s not the only notable voice, however. The other three voice actors have just as much notoriety: Suzuki Tatsuhisa from Bleach, Gintama, Black Butler and more; Fukuyama Jun from Blue Exorcist, Ore Monogatari!!, Snow White with the Red Hair, to name a few; and Matsuoka Yoshitsugu from Working!!, Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma, and so on.

▼ “Wayan-kun” from Indonesia (Fukuyama Jun) has something to tell you

As a part of the campaign, Cup Noodles is asking visitors to “show some love” to their favorite “S Man”, the moniker given to the 12 models voiced by the anime voice actors. To do this, you have to click the 捧げる (read “sasageru” and means “to offer, devote, sacrifice“) button. This will take you to Twitter where you then must become a Cup Noodles follower and vote via a tweet for the “S Man” of your choice. The tweet is pre-scripted for you, so as long as you click that 捧げる button on the page that corresponds to your favorite “S Man”, you’ll be good to go.

▼ The “magic button”

magic buttons

Why bother voting? Well, people who tweet their pick for the spiciest “S Man” between July 19, 2016 and August 2, 2016 will be in the running to will a special prize! 4 winners will be chosen out of all the voters. The prize pack will include a CD of the voice actors in their various “S Men” roles, an autograph from one of the voice actors, and 46 trading cards of all 46 hotties.

▼A few of the hunky “S Men”

smen

Unfortunately, the contest is only open to residents of Japan. That doesn’t mean you can’t vote, though!

If you haven’t gotten your fill of (ra)men yet, make yourself some Cup Noodles ramen, take a seat, and keep this strangely sexy video about instant noodles on loop:

Finally, before we send you over to starting voting, we should note that the Cup Noodles website for this campaign will totally embarrass you if the volume is turned up on your computer at work and your earphones are not plugged in. You have been warned!

Sources: Cup Noodles
Images: Cup Noodles