YMMV / Pepsiman

• Adaptation Displacement: Outside of Japan, at least, Pepsiman is more well-known for the game than for the advertisements, despite the game itself never leaving Japan.
• Cult Classic: Despite being a financial failure (thanks to being a Japan-exclusive game), Pepsiman has a nice amount of fans outside Japan.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • (For this case, it's also crossing over with Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales with certain aspects) Despite the game and most of the advertisements being Japan-exclusive, both are remarkably popular in the Anglosphere, if only because of the sheer absurdity of the premise behind them and the fact that Pepsiman is widely considered a genuinely well-designed and effectively-characterized mascot over there. The fact that both the ads and the game are almost entirely in English (barring Japanese subtitles for dialogue) definitely helps as well. The love for Pepsiman among English-speakers is so great that there have even been calls for the original ads to be revived in the west.
  • Thanks to the prevalence of bootleg copies in that region, the game seems to have had a significant Periphery Demographic in Latin America around the time of its original release, as evidenced by numerous comments on YouTube playthroughs.
  • Pepsiman's also popular and well-known in the Middle East, to the point where the video game even has an Arabic fan translation.
  • It's quite popular in Indonesia as well, with many PS1 owners citing it as one of their "nostalgia games" from when they were kids. This is due to Indonesia's rampant piracy problems during the game's release date, but it instead made the game more accessible to poorer players who also sought for more varieties rather than the mainstream popular games, and end up being fond with the game and its zaniness. It also helps that for its time (until the product was pulled out from the country due to corporate agreements), Pepsi was one of the more prominent coke brands in the nation (aside of its rival Coca Cola), so the product-based game works.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The second phase of stage 1 in the video game resembles the iconic City Escape stage of Sonic Adventure 2 from two years later, and though Pepsiman is chased by a giant Pepsi can at the end of this stage, he does get chased by a truck at the end of stage 2.
• Memetic Mutation: "Pepsi for TV-Game!" ^Explanation An Engrishy line that actor Mike Butters speaks in one of the games FMV cutscenes. It's a very popular line due to just how odd and out-of-place it is in a game already full of odd and out-of-place elements.
• Older Than They Think: Believe it or not, there was actually another Pepsiman who first appeared in 1993, much earlier than the one we're familiar with. He was played by comedian Paul Rodriguez and the commercial was only aired in Mexico.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: Memes aside, the game is generally considered to be a poorly designed mess loaded with Fake Difficulty, shallow gameplay, and an overly short length.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • The 3D modeller of Pepsiman is Kotaro Uchikoshi, the same person who would eventually become one of the writers for Ever17 and Zero Escape. In fact, this was his very first assignment once he joined the workforce.
  • The man from the live action cutscenes, Mike Butters, would later play Paul from the Saw franchise, and in 2019 would reprise his Pepsiman role in an Angry Video Game Nerd episode, reviewing the game to help the Nerd defeat Pepsiman.
  • This was also the first start of Takeshi Abo (who did the sound design) who would eventually go on to make the soundtrack for Ever17 and Steins;Gate.
• Watch It for the Meme: The actual game is a mess of bad design and very short length. The memes surrounding it are the main reason why anyone is interested in it.

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