Halloween Roundup 2015

May this year's Halloween fireworks light up the sky of your life!

Halloween is growing in popularity every year in Japan. I think a huge part of it is just that stores want to sell crap to people and there aren't many good Japanese holidays to fill the void this time of year. Actually, the department store I went to today had Christmas crap up all over the place already. I even saw some Christmas displays a week ago. Still, it seems people enjoy doing things they imagine should be done on Halloween.

For example, there aren't really many pumpkins here, but there are a lot of mandarin oranges and persimmons,  so it makes sense that stickers are available to make "pumpkins".

More and more people are wearing some form of a costume. In my opinion, most are about as lame as possible. They're often very cheap with little to no thought put into them. Others are ridiculously good. I will give the 2015 Gaybotstume award to none other than Kyary Pamyu Pamyu for her David Bowie costume.

めっちゃ練習したからね😎 RT @iwasiwasi51: きゃりーちゃん！Mステみたよ！デヴィットボウイのポーズしててなんか面白くてきゃりーちゃんらしくてきゃりーちゃんに凄く似合ってたよ🎃@pamyurin pic.twitter.com/l6wCim0LHJ

— きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ (@pamyurin) October 30, 2015

I'm pretty sure that covers all the Halloween news here in Japan. Merry Christmas!

Kyary as Boop

I know beauty is supposedly subjective and all, but take a look at this picture and tell me Kyary Pamyu Pamyu isn't the sexiest woman alive.

Betty Boop🚿 pic.twitter.com/iRoYICPg0C

— きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ (@pamyurin) October 24, 2015

Told you, dudez. Simply breathtaking.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu - Crazy Party Night : Pumpkins Strike Back

We'll soon be 80 short days away from the spookiest night of the year! Time to break out the Halloween music. Kyary, of course, had another Halloween song a few years back, Fashion Monster. Pumpkins Strike Back seems to be an obvious reference to that of an empire striking back, so we can all look forward to even more Halloween music in the future.

Again, the chorus is very poetic. It captures the joy of a crazy party night so well, but, at the same time, it recognizes what Halloween is all about. It makes us examine our own mortality. It might cause our innermost fears to come to the surface, and in the end we can only but go mad realizing the absurdity of this reality... so it becomes all that much more of a crazy party night. The chorus goes like this:

Pum pum pum with pumpkin,
Dancing dancing Halloween,
Kawaii o-bake no Halloween (a cute ghost's Halloween),
Pu pum with pumpkin,
Crazy crazy crazy night,
Dancing dancing pumpkin,
Crazy crazy party night.

Link Dump

Here's some crap to look at:

Girlbot likes this Delicare M's (M stands for men). It's a lotion to soothe and cool your itchy crotch.

There's apparently a school called Virgin Academia. It's supposed to help you lose your virginity, and the textbook is called Virgin Breaker. By the way, that reminds me of this Ecuadorian guy who many times asked me, "How many girls you breakin'? I breakin' 4 girls. How many you breakin'?" The schools "consept" is:
1. Virginity isn't the individual's problem, but rather a problem of society.
2. They want to give virgins an opportunity to study the knowledge and information they need.
3. They want to decrease the number of virgins (those who don't want to be virgins).

There was an interesting/morbid article about people who clean up dead people's apartment's. Specifically it's about people who died alone and weren't discovered for a long time. Apparently it's a booming business.

There hasn't been a lot of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu news on here lately, but she's still keeping it real.

👉🏻👈🏻 pic.twitter.com/J9PcRkjbnk

— きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ (@pamyurin) June 28, 2015

Be the first (and last) person you know to know who The Falsettos are. This song reminds me a bit of The Walkmen.

Kira Kira Killer

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's new song is called Kira Kira Killer. It could be translated to "Sparkling Killer".  She's apparently some super hero. At the beginning of the song, she chants, "L-U-C-K!" but she can't really pronounce "L" like an English speaker, so that's fun. Kira backwards in Japanese is raki or lucky, so the chorus is that over and over. My horrible translation of the chorus:

Sparkling Killer lucky lucky lucky
Look, the future is happy happy happy
Sparkling killer from the sky now
Coming now 1, 2, 3, 4
Sparkling Killer lucky lucky lucky
Look, the future is happy happy happy
Sparkling Killer thump thump thump* fall in love
Sparkling Killer Sparkling Killer
Sparkling Killer magical power
Completely a Sparkling Killer

*a heart beating sound

Obviously people will debate the significance of these lyrics for centuries to come, but we can all agree that killers create at least a bit of happiness in this crazy world. Also, lucky, lucky, lucky.

Another Kyary Toothpaste Thing

There must have been a decision that Kyary's last toothpaste commercial seemed a little too much like a commercial for toothpaste. It's Kyary vs. Stains. She battles some curry, a chocolate bar, and a child coffee bean. She murders them all easily with the help of Ora². Then she says that cleaning your teeth is like cleaning yourself. I agree. When I have really clean teeth, I feel like I blew up a living being with a rainbow or something.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu - Family Party

Kyary's newest 8-bit single is about understanding what's important in life and staying with the people you love. I think that's why the video depicts her battling a robot in some sort of incomprehensible game. In the end, Kyary, the robot, and the effeminate referee are all winners... just like how families... space tournaments... demon dog... cake card.

AU Strikes Back

After seeing what Docomo was up to, AU had to take drastic measures. They decided to have Kyary Pamyu Pamyu be a pink witch promoting some sort of lucky application.

A very strong move indeed. I don't know what it is, but pink stars always make me want to support a company.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu - Yume No Hajimarinrin

Kyary's back!!! And she's finally bidding farewell to her polar bear guardian!!! The title of this song means "the beginning of (my) dream, ring ring." It's another very witty title because she's combined the end of "hajimari" (beginning) with "rin rin" (ring ring). So that works on a ton of levels or something.

The song is featured in a Chintai commercial (a site where you can search for apartments) and seems to be aimed at graduating students (March is the end of the school year in Japan). You can hear her say in katakana English "Goodbye teacher, my friends" in the chorus. The video features references to all her previous videos and she sports some of her famous outfits. It shows how much she's grown up. I mean, remember when she used to fake play the guitar next to monsters? Well now she does it with that polar bear and stuff. Anyway, she's supposed to grow up in the video, first being a child, then a student, then the pon pon pon girl, then a fashion monster, and finally wearing a furisode.

Kyary's ALOOK CM

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is in a new commercial for ALOOK glasses. Kyary's wearing a dress made of glasses and is starring alongside a goat in some sort of a wasteland (talk about every guyz sexual fantasy). The slogan at the end of the ad is ミレ　ミラレル or, "see, be seen." I think that, "see a goat, be seen by a goat," makes way more sense, but apparently it was too long. The ALOOK website explains that while it's true that glasses have become fashionable, most glasses look alike. There's a wide variety of clothing and hairstyles, so why isn't the same true for glasses? ALOOK's glasses will help you express your identity to the world. So... what kind of person are you? A neon green type of guy? No? Oh, so you're more into neon pink? No? Wait...so what kind of neon color are you into? Huh? Neon brown? I've never heard...wait...just brown? I get it. Have fun conforming with your brown glasses you fascist! Get out of our store!

Mottai Nightland Christmas

I think a lot of people get caught up in materialism. This time of the year you can't avoid questions like, "Whose pants are tightest around the ankles?" and, "Which video game has the most graphics?" But it's things like the above video that remind us of what this season is all about. From the golden unicorn that visited baby Jesus to those little ghost men acting like snow, this commercial tugs at the heart. I'm just going to call it like I see it. If you watched this and had even one dry eye by the end, I can deduce that you belong to some fake religion. Am I right?

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu - Mottai-Nightland

You may remember a bit of this song from the AU commercial it was featured in. It combines the Japanese term "mottainai" (meaning "what a waste") with the extremely common English phrase "Nightland." So that pretty much explains why Kyary transforms into a dog and craps strawberry ice cream. Other than that, this is pretty much a rip off of Super Mario Bros. 2.

As usual, her lyrics are gibberish. The chorus is basically:
Because it's a waste, because it's a waste, 
I think of my dreams and cry.
Because it's a waste, because there's not enough,
I do mean things.

It's amazing how much those lyrics and the video perfectly capture the "nightland" in my head. Again, I should probably mention that I'm suicidal.
 

Kyary's Toothpaste Commercial

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and Ora² have finally teamed up. The slogan is, "Brushing your teeth is like making yourself shine." The special Kyary toothpaste site has a really weird poem about brushing your teeth. Also, you can get some app for your phone to make your photos cute if you buy the toothpaste.

When Kyary brushes the giant cartoon tooth in the commercial, and little message pops up in the corner telling us its only an image. They're basically admitting the commercial isn't completely based in reality.

Kyary's Smart Value AU CM

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is back with another classic commercial. This time the guy in charge of putting stuffed animals in Kyary's hair asks her if she's enrolled in the "smart value" plan. She doesn't know that this is in reference to AU's plan that saves you $15 a month, so a bunch of ghosts with the symbol モ (mo) for noses appear. To the layman this may seem strange, but of course the mo stands for mottainai, or "what a waste". Goriki and the others become worried when Kyary doesn't leave the dressing room. Turns out she's just dancing with the ghosts and singing her new single Mottainai Dorando. She's saying, "Because it's a waste, because it's a waste I think of my dreams and cry." That's the kind of message most cell phone companies want associated with their product. I don't know why they don't add the catch phrase, "Kill yourself."

Kyary and AU 2

This is clearly an ad about changing cell phone companies, right? Actually, this ad makes more sense than the last Kyary AU ad. To recap, "norikaeru" means change, but "nori" alone means ride, and "kaeru" can mean frog, so frogs riding around in a rocket ship and a giant robotic frog is the perfect way to let the public know that you have a wonderful cell phone company. The three women say, "What a big change." "There's a change-discount campaign. That's why they're changing." "It's easy to understand. There are no strings attached." It's great that Japanese commercials can so accurately capture natural (and interesting) conversations.

Kyary and AU

I think this is the third commercial Kyary Pamyu Pamyu has made in about the last month or so. This time she teams up with Goriki, AU's normal spokesperson (she's that girl with short hair who introduces Kyary). She's also kind of the it girl in Japan right now. The commercial features the song Norikotonoriwo. She keeps singing, "Norikaeru," which would usually mean changing trains, but I guess it's used for changing phone companies in this case. The ad is for a special discount for switching to AU. Kaeru means "change," but it can also mean "frog," so that explains why that frog has a moustache and why Kyary's doing that hand seizure dance.

Ice No Mi

A little while back I was bemoaning the fact that Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's new song Mi seemed to be just another song crapped out for the indiscriminate consumer. It turns out that it, like most of her singles, appears to have been written to promote another product. In this case, it's for Ice No Mi or "The Fruit of Ice" in English. This is perhaps her finest commercial yet. I'm guessing it could give you a seizure, and it's almost impossible to tell what is actually being sold. And why are giant ducks puking out the product? I've never tried Ice No Mi, but apparently they're frozen balls that are 80% fruit juice.

Mi

This is a preview of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's new song Mi. The lyrics are just "Pami" and "Mi." It seems like they're doing some sort of marketing experiment. Like, if we release the worst music in the world, but Kyary sings it, can we still sell it? The OK Soda of Japan?

Kyary and KFC to Induce Vomiting

I have to hand it to Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. She really has the pop vomiting market cornered. First she had this GU commercial, and now she stars on a page that is designed to makes you sick to your stomach. Remember the KFC Krushers commercial? The slogan was kura kura which means dizzy. This is a strange slogan for a non-alcoholic beverage, but stranger yet is the new web page KFC made. It features an optical allusion that causes dizziness. After a few seconds a warning comes up telling you that you shouldn't look at the page for too long. What a brilliant idea for an ad campaign! If you still want to look, and you're a chicken if you don't (buck, buck, buuuuck), check out Kyary's Krusher page here. If any of you are trying to find a new way to expand your child's mind (what with the man saying you can't lace kids "apple juice" with hallucinogens), try forcing them to look at this for ten minutes.

Kyary and KFC Krushers

Doesn't this just make you want to swallow too much peyote and try to eat LSD with your eyes... I mean go to KFC? I believe this is actually the second time Kyary Pamyu Pamyu has made a commercial for KFC Krushers, and this time you can hear her song Kura Kura. The slogan is, "Do you kura kura?" As far as I know, kura kura means dizzy or excited. Maybe it's some new slang I'm not aware of. It sounds like she's saying "Chu chu kura kura." Chu is the sound of a kiss, so it's probably about the giddiness of kissing. You for sure didn't need to know any of that. Basically, the ad campaign doesn't make much sense.