Marketing

It's true what you hear. The truth is stranger than fiction. My first encounter with Pocari Sweat was shock, awe, and denial. Who the hell are the Pocari and what kind of money are they making in all of this hydrating and perspiration? And what makes you think that I'm willing to pay ¥150 for a bottle of it? As it turns out, it's not sweat. But it's incredibly close. This sports drink is made up of electrolytes and all this other goodness that we lose during activities, so someone in the marketing department figured that they would latch onto the trend of using completely random English in hopes of "cooling up" the product. And Pocari Sweat was born.

I'm not going to lie to you, either. It tastes just delicious. But the smell reminds me of a high school change room for reasons I cannot explain.

My father's first reaction was to take a picture of the vending machine, so the credit goes to him for that. I've been staring at these vending machines for the last two years, but grew gradually acclimatized to the oddity and it took some fresh Canadians to make me realize just how absurd this and other anglo-misappropriation I was seeing on a day to day basis.

We expatriate residents of Japan do, in fact, have a fond name for such widespread misuse: Engrish.