Itai! The Latest Japanese Obscenities

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt
itai the latest japanese obscenities

Since its heyday beginnings, Wired has suffered from what my (Japanese) wife characterizes as “yellow fever:” A fetish for Japanese women. Wired’s repeat offender “Japanese Schoolgirl Watch” is legend. Actually, Japanese schoolgirls are not much to look at, unless you are a pedophile and have a yen for plaid skirts and bobby socks. How does a lowly Lambo Gallardo get into Wired? It must look like a Manhattan subway car that was attacked by spray-can-wielding Japanese schoolgirls. This $>200K Gallardo belongs Japanese Age-Soft’s CEO Yoshida. He made the money to acquire the Lambo (and other likewise tagged wheels) with hentai videogames. “Hentai” means “pervert” in Japanese, but according to my wife (bless her heart) in Japan, that can be an honorific. Painting cars with manga characters is a new and somewhat itai (painful) Japanese fad. [Again, Autoblog gets it wrong. They write “In Japan, Otaku are the rabid fans of anime.” No true. Otaku is Japanese for geek. Ota-ku is also a ward in the south of Tokyo. Go figure.]

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  • Jordan Tenenbaum Jordan Tenenbaum on Nov 23, 2008

    I'm a huge fan of anime, but not on cars.

  • JEC JEC on Nov 23, 2008

    I'd rate that as slightly less cool than greasy adolescents wearing brightly coloured DragonballZ shirts. In fact I would expect said adolescent to climb out of that thing, flush with cash from career computer hacking but still unable to comprehend why people avoid talking to him.

  • Mekira Mekira on Nov 24, 2008

    I once saw the Pikachu-Beetle driving on the opposite side of the freeway. It was quite neat! http://www.cjonline.com/images/082798/daypokemonb.jpg

  • BlueBrat BlueBrat on Nov 24, 2008
    Mekira: Those Pikachu-Beetle's are Nintendo's doing, they had them made up for trade show events like E3 and the like. It think they look great. Wouldn't be caught dead driving it though. :)
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