Clothes with something in English written on them are still pretty popular here. The sentences might make more sense than what they would have even just 5 years ago, especially since there are import shops that sell shirts that were originally made for an English speaking country. So while the words/sentences themselves might not be incorrect the situation in which the shirt is worn or, in this case, the contrast with the person who is wearing the shirt causes you to laugh.

For this one it was partly because of the name (it’s an area near where I grew up) coupled with the kid, he’s a boy. So, yeah, who would’ve expected that I, being in Japan, would see a coat from a region where I grew up on a young Japanese boy? The chances of that are so low that it must have not happened.

He’s hiding somewhere under that huge coat.

Hands against the wall

Pets is an interesting subject when the given location is Japan. Many pets in Japan are mobile and go many more places with their owners than a pet in another country might. Although it might not seem like it, pets ride the trains often. I didn’t really know about this until I was coming home from work and the bag that was sitting next to be moved. Expecting the worst I readied by sword, fortunately the owner showed me that this was no threat, only a puppy. This isn’t even the most interesting way I’ve seen pets be transported. Pets can often be seen riding along in baby strollers, bicycles, purses, and on one occasion I witnessed a miniature dachshund in a backpack.

Pets here also seem to have had a surgery that makes sure that they never ever make any noise. The little dog on the train (whose life I spared) never made any noise the entire time we were on that train, even when the owner opened up the carrier and the steel heart melting bag of fur popped it’s adorable head out and curiously looked around its new environment. It’s probably not surgery, but I have a guess that it’s an asian only spell and I’m not re-rolling my character this late in the game for something like that.

I promise I won’t shit in your tea.

The majority of pet owners are quite good at raising their barking (or meowing) life-span lengtheners. However, some other things pet related in Japan are, well, quite not cute. Like everywhere else, Japan has it’s share of cat ladies and there are other people that have been known to abuse or abandon their pets; this is one of the reasons why I wish a place like hell actually existed. However, I don’t really think that these people are representative of any large swath of the pet owning population in Japan. Plus, I haven’t been able to find any statistics about the number of abuses in any country (though there are articles about abuses).

Another thing that plagues Japan is cats. They’re all over the place here and no one owns them. There’s one family of cats a block from my apartment, I see other strays every once in a while, and when I’m somewhere else in the city it isn’t uncommon to see a stray cat every once in a while. Partly, it’s because spaying/neutering wasn’t encouraged nearly as enough as it should have been and a number of cats were let go/escaped into the city. Now that they’ve reproduced many times we can’t put the cat back in the bag, literally.

Crazy fuckers can’t get me here.

This could be one of the reasons why abuses might occur here. The cats are alone and have no one that cares about them. Besides being caught and being a normal person, there isn’t any real problems with swiping and doing a bunch of sick things to a stray. No one is going to look for it and very few people will know about it unless you put it up on 2ch. Even given that, there’s still something very wrong with you if you have to mutilate cats to feel good about yourself. Can’t you do something else like autoerotic asphyxiation or buy a real doll?

The last issue is that of pet shops. For all intents and purposes they do seem quite normal, but they have some things that can only really come about through the insistence of かわいい (kawaii, cute) culture. From a young age, puppies are separated from their mothers so that they can sell as quickly as possible and make more money (puppies are cute). This isn’t good, but it really isn’t a bad thing per se. However, given the space limitations, they usually put each puppy into a tiny little cage. Not so bad for the tiny ones though since they usually can’t do too much anyways.

Does a brotha never get respect?

The problem is that animals that need more space tend to be either older or not as cute. These animals are still put in small cages and seem to be in a constant state of unhappiness unless if they decided to go to sleep because being unhappy is an exhausting activity. I’m not even sure why they have some of the animals that they do (some pet shops have monkeys, owls, fox looking creatures, and others). Sometimes I don’t want to buy the animals because I want it, but because I want to liberate it. I hope the monkey there doesn’t have rage.

All Japanese people like BDSM (don’t search this)

The summer school uniform, being lighter, is used until the school decides to tell the students it’s time to change. There’s freaky weather, winter arrives early (according to nature) and so it’s abnormally cold. What does the school say? Fuck ‘em. The kids don’t get to decide when they are allowed to switch uniforms. This same thing happens in the spring. The students shed the winter coats, not according to the weather or even the farmers’ almanac, but according to the demands of principals and superintendents.

This doesn’t just happen in schools, many people do this as well. The thing about everyone else is that it’s not so prominent; more long sleeve shirts, longer skirts, sweaters, turtlenecks, and thigh high boots are seen in the colder times of the year in Japan, but you can still people wearing long sleeve shirts in other seasons as well.

The non creative students wear uniforms like these 2.
You don’t want to see the uniforms of the creative students.

Part of the reason that it doesn’t seem so prominent of a change in the non-student population is that the spring/fall clothes don’t really leave their spots in the closet. If it’s a little colder today, you can wear a long sleeve shirt. If it’s a little warmer than usual, you can wear short sleeves. This blurs the line, but there’s still a retarded monkey fish squirrel that drew that crooked line in the sand. And, whether we like it or not, a line is a line.

But why was this line drawn? What’s the point? What purpose does it serve? These are questions to which there is no answer. Unfortunately, there isn’t a God of the weird Japanese custom gaps or an intelligent theory of Japanese season changes. So short of kidnapping a maid and making her undergo “extreme interrogation techniques” (i.e. a facial and tummy tuck) it looks like there’s not going to be a definitive answer as to why this occurs.

She’s on her way.

These girls just get a tan and don’t go overboard with it. I don’t have any good pictures of them yet, but you can easily guess what they look like. Now, many times I don’t really like this fashion, but the reasons for it (and also for Ganguro) are asthetic.

They just let me out of the asylum. Let’s go to Shibuya and rob some fuckers.

Pretty much all Japanese people have black hair and black eyes by default. When they change away from their natural color, it doesn’t always fit them. Or, at least, it seems that way to me. Usually, if a Japanese person just dyes their hair, it’s ok; if they just get a tan, it’s usually not too bad; it’s when the two are combined that the chance that it looks good drops dramatically. This is all subjective. You might think that this style is great and want to mash my head in one of those chicken-head-cutting-off-machines, that’s fine. Each of us has our own opinion and fashion is, for the most part, just wearing someone else’s opinion that you agree with.

The parfait has reached the speed of sound, but her brain is barely moving.

This type of style isn’t the best in my opinion, but there’s certainly worse.

We are regressing.

A lot of Japanese people (Look ma, I’m stereotyping! [but it's truish]) have a propensity to not know that there are some things that you just can’t say. Another variety of this is that there are somethings you shouldn’t really do. The type of individual that I will talk about manages to do both with very little trouble.

You know how I said species of Japanese person? Well, I don’t think Japan is like Pokemon, it’s more like Final Fantasy. Anyways, this class of Japanese person generally goes by the name of Ganguro (ガングロ or 願黒 – blackface). Wonderful, isn’t it? They’re black mages like Rikku; you’d know if you played Final Fantasy X: Barbie Edition.

Oh yeah baby. Show me your dress sphere.

Umm… yeah. So, if you haven’t guessed already, these girls do something with black and faces. Luckily, because of millions of years of evolution have allowed us to put 2 and 2 together, we understand what they do. They, through a process that science calls tanning, make themselves many shades darker than they were when they were birthed. The question I’m hoping is on your mind right now is “Why the hell would they do that?” The meaningless, and senseless, answer is because they think it’s cool. Please don’t ask me why they think it’s cool I don’t know; luckily no one else does either.

This is where cancer comes from.

As you can tell from the pictures, they do a little more than just lots of tanning. A lot of the time they also will lighten their hair a good deal. They will go further down the path of ocular torture of the mass populace by putting on white or light colored eye shadow. When the process is finished, they look as beautiful as fresh pig intestines. Yum.

If you lick them, they taste like dashi flavored BBQ

Unfortunately (what?), this fashion style has heard the call of the siren and has run aground. There are few people who still go so far as to do everything that would make them qualify as a ガングロ, but there are are plenty of other people who have just resorted to the halfway style. Maybe I’ll talk about that soon.

“If I do this, maybe I’ll get SEX!”

For some odd reason, some guys fell for this as well. WTF people, WTF.

Anyways… Osaka has its own fucked up area of the city, America Mura (アメリカ村, America Village) or Ame-mura as everyone calls it. So what the hell is it? It’s a little area of Osaka that all of the crazy kids go to. Most of the places here (clothing stores, bars, music stores) focus on teenagers and 20-somethings. The thing is is that this is Japan, so it’s different here. At Ame-mura a lot of people will meet/hang out at triangle park; it’s not really much of a park though, small, just a fountain and a bunch of places to sit down and no grass.

I recently got a new camera that I absolutely adore. It has a 10x zoom that is great for taking candid photos of people (something I could not do with my old camera). Now I can show you guys tons of stuff that I could never show before without freaking people out (even more).

ANYWAYS…

Ame-mura is known for it’s eccentric (to say the least) fashion. The people over here seem to

America Mura fashion is quite a interesting collection of fashions. You go from the neo Japanese classical of these two girls (the one on the right is a girl, right? I honestly have no idea and I took the picture)…

Some people decide to take elements from American culture (say, for example, the 50′s) like this girl with the huge beehive stuck on her head.

Other people will choose one color and run with it.

Some people just decide to seemingly pick random things from their closet and put them on.

And then there are those that will just wear what they’ve always worn for the past 3 or so years (or buy something very similar).

Ame-mura is quite interesting. It’s pretty much the one of the few places in Osaka that is a must visit. I’m going to make a picture folder that is just of stuff like this. Since I can actually do candids now stuff like this will go there.

Quick translation:Host: Wait… that’s underwear, right?

Girl: It’s underwear, but it’s because it’s hot.

(unimportant things here)

Girl: It took a lot of effort to put this outfit together. (note: … what!?!)

Host: When eating, it’s probably a little embarassing when you get full.

And…. uhhh… don’t think I see this all the time when I go out. I don’t. Short skirts? Yes. This? No.