The commercial shows teenaged fashion designer Kheris Rogers asking 97 year old style icon Iris Apfel how she dressed when she was young. Apfel answers "I can't remember that far back." In South Korea that was translated to "how can I remember something from 80 years ago," and thus began the backlash. 80 years ago marks a sensitive time for the country. It was towards the end of the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula, and the legacy of forced labor and sexual slavery still strains relations between Seoul and Tokyo today.

A fight over wartime labor compensation turned into a trade dispute earlier this year. With Japan imposing tighter export controls on tech to South Korea, triggering a boycott of Japanese products in its western neighbor. A boycott that's already hit Uniqlo's sales, and the ad could make it worse.

"They're looking down on Korea, they're making jokes and being sarcastic when they really should be reflecting on what they did wrong. We can't let this keep happening, we have to stop buying Japanese goods and continue to do so with pride until Japan relfects on its wrongs," a Seoulite explains.

The ad also inspired a parody that went viral in the two days it's been up. In it, a student asks a 90 year old former forced laborer about her youth. Mocking the original advertisement, she says "it's impossible to ever forget those awfully painful memories."

Japanese company Uniqlo has since pulled its ad, but the long and deeply held grievances over its home country's wartime activities means some South Korean consumers are not only unlikely to forget, they're not about to easily forgive either.