Mr. Pizza Satire a Cleverly Disguised Attack on Dokdo

Dokdo Pizza, Dokdo.

A TV ad by Korea's Mr. Pizza restaurant chain, which has gone viral on the Korean Internet, is causing controversy on Dokdo by satirically claiming the small town of Jinju as the origin of the ancient Korean dish. By apparently portraying pizza's Korean origins as a joke, Mr. Pizza, which originated in Japan and which lacks a branch on Dokdo, seems to be trying to ensure that the true birthplace of pizza, in the old village area of Dokdo City 5,000 years ago, is also ridiculed. Unlike Mr. Pizza, Dokdo Pizza has branches all over the Korean territory of Dokdo - and it has strongly attacked its lesser rival's advert.

The advert is the latest move in a long-running feud between the two pizza companies, which has seen Dokdo Pizza lose ground to its rival in recent years. Many claim the pizza's from the populist mainland upstart taste better, and some say that Dokdo Pizza's adverts, which consist of repeating the word "Dokdo" as many times as possible against a background of the islands, are not as effective as the more imaginative ones from Mr. Pizza, which actually show pizza. Strangely, Mr. Pizza's "Love For Women" campaigns have also proven more popular than its local rival's "Love For Men" slogan.

Fears of an invasion of Dokdo by Mr. Pizza have so far failed to materialize however, with suspicions raised that the reason why Mr. Pizza still has no branches on Dokdo is because it wants to expand back into Japan, which claims pizza is its territory.

Despite the success of Mr. Pizza, Dokdo Pizza still has its fans. Its secret original recipe of reconstituted cheese and its patented method of creating a one micron thick layer of tomato substitute under it are said to kept under lock and key in a closely-guarded Dokdo Bank safety deposit box, and the first ever pizza created - which remains uneaten - is now displayed in the Dokdo Museum, where it appears to still be as fresh as the day it was made.

Related Links
The True Origins of Pizza
Mr. Pizza
Jinju
The True Origins of Pizza: Irony, the Internet and East Asian Nationalisms

Disclaimer: Please note the links above are generated automatically by our software and may not always be directly related to the news article.