To promote its chili tomato-flavored cup noodles, Nissin parodied announcer Gama no Abura’s viral commentary of fighting game professional Daigo Umehara competing in a Guilty Gear X2 tournament at the 2003 Tougeki – Super Battle Opera (SBO). The Nissin commercial in question replaces Gama no Abura’s riveting fighting game critiques with exclamations such as “Umehara drives the ramen into the corner of the screen!” “Umehara takes the kettle!,” and “Umehara places the cheese!”:
The original commentary features Gama no Abura giving an extremely passionate play-by-play of Daigo’s match. After two of his teammates were eliminated from the match, Daigo was left to combat the three members of the enemy team. Daigo went on to defeat the enemy team by himself and advance his team to the semifinals, which they unfortunately lost.
Though it has been more than 20 years since the match, Game no Abura’s overzealous commentary has immortalized the match into the halls of meme culture. Different aspects, from the Guilty Gear X2 gameplay to the audio, have been modified to humorous effect. Nissin, however, was able to go the extra mile by getting Daigo himself to eat a cup of instant noodles at the end of the commercial.
