According to a recent Mainichi article, sales for Halloween paraphernalia have surpassed those of White Day and are set to overtake Valentine’s Day at this trajectory. Valentine’s Day in Japan distorts the practice into a one-sided affair where women give chocolates to men, be it out of love or obligation. Men then have a month to weigh their options and possible escape routes before reciprocating with sweets on White Day. The common denominator for all three events appears to be confectioneries. But don’t be tricked--Halloween has nothing to do with kids receiving treats and everything to do with adults being obnoxious in costume.
Halloween is Comiket for non-nerds. It’s the one night of the year where people can try out new personas without fear of public scorn. Ah, a guy crossdressing as a schoolgirl--sure, it’s a joke, whatever you say buddy. A mom pushing a baby stroller dolled up as naughty Little Red Riding Hood with a skirt shorter than Shibuya gyaru--fair enough, you still want to taste the thrill of teasing the Big Bad Wolf. Visual kei goth kids go from social pariah to the center of attention--exactly the point of their ridiculous fashion. Alright people, you're free to let it all hang loose and be yourself!
Being yourself can also mean being a complete asshole. Halloween events start out friendly enough with friends in team costumes mugging for the camera and parents offering up their children to the strangers’ shutter--an amazing lapse of prudence for a country that won’t post their own face to Facebook out of fear for their privacy. The costume transforms the wearer into a superhero whose only ability is the power to stop acting Japanese for the day. And as the night stretches on, people get bolder, drunker and ruder.
The whole thing degenerates into packs of guys either cruising for chicks or looking to start fights. Basically, it plays out like any other Japanese festival. And that’s how you know, even without the Dentsu think tank telling you so, that the holiday is here to stay. Once the public accepts the rules of engagement for a new form of mass insanity it becomes a cultural norm. Look at Christmas--somehow a health conscious and romantically conservative nation convinced itself that fried chicken and trysts at luxury hotels were the most appropriate ways to celebrate the birth of Christ.
Who knows--given enough media prodding, maybe Japan will even restart the Yamanote Halloween hijack. For the time being, adolescent Tokyoites and displaced foreigners will have to settle for the Shibuya Center Gai street party or share space with families at the 3000-strong Kawasaki costume parade. No matter where the guys and ghouls end up shuffling, TSB will be there to capture the chaos on film.
Now that you've seen what's behind the mask you can never unsee it.
This awesome group costume was robbed of the Grand Prize that, predictably, went to an Alice in Wonderland family.
Lots of high-concept low-budget outfits on display. When did The Amino Acids turn in their theremin for a shamisen?
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Grinding in Monster Hunter feels less meaningless when you're doing it surrounded by others. At least stay in character buddy.
The Romero-esque irony of a zombie schoolgirl fumbling with her cellphone during a social function is not lost on me.
Want to cosplay but your outfit isn't worthy of Comiket? Then Kawasaki Halloween is for you!
Yokai costumes are cool enough, but ones inspired by ukiyo-e prints? Get 'outta town!
No way Bowser could take pole position with his slow acceleration given all the lightning bolts and blue shells zipping about that day.
Even werewolf flashers look classy with portrait lighting.
The street performers Creepers were out in full force.
Babies and half-dressed girls have nothing on a pooch with sunglasses and the right amount of swagger.
These Dollers were all smiles as they gave out panty shots.
This JoJo-inspired copper had it going on. Check out the gekiga shadows drawn on to accentuate the, uhm, lines of her body.
This Kyonshi could be the cover of any 80's B-horror flick.
Japan does kitsch Americana better than America.
Quick, get La Carmina on the phone: Split tongues and jewelry implants are the next biggest youth craze since bagel heads!
Extras from the Japanese remake of The Return of the Living Dead.
Shironuri schoolgirls, been there, done that--now a Morrigan crossplayer, that's scary!
Yeah, this guy's hand really comes off. No, I don't know how he gets it back on.
Marilyn Manroe's bodyguard was on full alert for the Red Creeper we saw above.
Very cute father-daughter team--until you realize that Sirene is six years old and walking around in her underwear.
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Unfortunately we weren't able to ask these gas-masked machine gunners what the name of their idol unit was.
Harajuku cyber rockers were partying like it was 1999.
Remember when potbellied pigs where a fad? The next big thing in small livestock is pygmy goats. Seriously.
Bloody bandages and a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu monster mouth make any girl into marriage material.
Too bad this one was already taken! Babies continue to be a must-have fashion accessory this year.
Thanks
to the city of Kawasaki for another great event and to the visual
effects artists for bringing some much needed gore back to my daily
grind.
Visit Umezu Kazuo's official homepage for more event pics and footage!
Autumn in Japan has very little of the seasonal charm you grew up with. Trick or treating never caught on, nobody celebrates Thanksgiving, and good luck finding a pumpkin to carve. Thankfully we have the good folks in Kawasaki to throw us a bone with their annual Halloween Parade! The event is a cultural mash-up, part Macy’s Day Parade, part costume contest.
This year saw over three thousand costumed participants take over the streets in a frenzied procession of Cosplay, furries, gore, and good old-fashioned Halloween ingenuity. Words would only waste your time―Check out the raw footage of the revelers:
The parade concluded with a costume contest where participants competed in your bog standard categories, such as best special effects, best character, best overall, and so on. Of course, when special guest Umezu Kazuo is presiding as judge over this carnival of souls, you can be assured that the results would be anything but ordinary.
Image lifted from Denbushi - I couldn't even see let alone take pics! Thanks!-Voidmare
Say hello to the winner of this year’s special Umezu Kazuo Choice Award, our very own Voidmare, for his home-brewed take on the titular fiend from the 1968 Umezu-inspired horror flick, The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch (Hebi Musume to Hakuhatsuma).
Again, thanks to Jason for the photo and Velocitron for letting me use his airbrush!
I have to hand it to Voidmare for having the most perverted outfit out of an undulating sea of weirdos, exhibitionists, and fur suits. His baleful, empty gaze and twitching claws brought authentic fear and revulsion to the unexpected as he stalked through the crowd. It takes a special type of person to get their rocks off by loosening the bowels of those around them, and I’m proud to call him my (blogging) partner.
Not to be outdone, fellow Umezu and overall horror aficionado Gokicchi showed up in his self-stitched mask of Mokume, the Frankenstein-like demon doll from the one-shot Negai. Amidst the turmoil of the crowd, his otherwise plain clothes costume hit people when they least expected it and sent kids and women screaming for cover. True to the manga, he used real nails for the teeth! Concerned parents should sure to keep their children away from the grasp of Gokicchi's gardening gloves. It turned out that this was only a warm-up for the true showing of deviance that night.
The room gets uncomfortably hot around 1:10.
Of all the cultural flotsam that washed up onto the beaches of Japan, I never would have expected the natives to celebrate and form a cult around The Rocky Horror Picture Show. If you’re not familiar with the concept of “shadow casts”, they’re fairly straightforward—Veteran fans get up in front of the screen to act out scenes of the film, complete with the requisite costumes and props, while the audience supplements the dialogue with witty call backs, MST3K style. Except in this case they imported an authentic British transvestite, and the puns were in response to not only the audio dialogue, but also the subtitles, sometimes in Japanese, but more often in Engrish!
As someone who hasn’t seen Rocky Horror since I was old enough to understand how warped it is, I was overwhelmed by the visual whirlwind of following the screen, and shadows cast, and audience all at once, compounded by the blitzkrieg of bilingual jokes and bisexual stage antics. At least I was lucky enough to be skipped over for the Virgin Hazing. I’d hate to show up the regulars with my banana-eating technique.
The Kawasaki showing may be the beginning of another Rocky Horror revival in Japan, unseen since the height of the bubble. There’s even talk of bringing back the theater musical at some point next year. True believers, keep your eyes on Lips, the Rocky Horror fan club and masterminds behind the night’s debauchery.
Ultra-cute Gwash backup dancer and Cat Eyed Girl Kyoko (below) was kind enough to inform us that our picture was in the latest issue of WARP magazine. Imagine Dr. Senbei's surprise showing up at the Mummies show dressed as Nekome Kozo and finding 4 girls running around in the same costume. Imagine my surprise seeing myself giving a huge middle finger in a photo I don't remember posing for!
If you were on the Yamanote Line on the night of the 31st, it had better been to head into Shinjuku Loft for their all night Halloween concert!
The Loft has two stages separated by a sound proof door, and while that sounds like a good idea on paper, when the club hits full capacity it bottlenecks into a wall of immovable rebels without a clue who clog the sides of the narrow hallway like fat in an artery. Upon entering the venue you have the choice of two paths, so choose wisely my friend, for your decision will shape your musical destiny.
Halloween parties always bring in the most gregarious people from all around. The DJs kept people’s feet moving between sets with a mix of malt time classics and garage rock, but even the grooviest skirts can’t keep bopping for eight hours straight. The walls became lined with unconscious heaps of those who gave too much too early.
I was perfectly content to take this opportunity to re-charge with the silver-age horror and sci-fi trailers projected onto the stage. Anybody know Monster that Challenged the World?
The night was also host to something I thought I wouldn’t have to deal with outside the States—Scene kids! Since this was Halloween I can forgive people for putting on airs in trying to look cooler than the other guy, but there’s no excuse for the awkward atmosphere of everyone sizing each other up as they came through the door. Keep your egos at home kids.
To call the 5.6.7.8s the biggest disappointment of the night would be misleading. I wasn’t expecting a life-affirming thirty minutes of music, but it made my heart drop to see the mothers of Japanese garage rock lack the energy to pull together a coherent set. Is it age? The flu? If anyone’s seen them recently, do chime in to let us know they were just having an off night.
Thankfully The Mummies were there to make everything all right again. The scrutiny of the staff was surprising, however. The band couldn’t afford to have the equipment damaged after fronting the cash to fly themselves out to Japan, so the organizers pushed the crowd back and warned us not to get too rowdy. While I don’t judge the success of a show by how many liters of beer are thrown onto the stage, the phalanx of staff pooh-poohing crowd surfers kept the revelry below the expected apocalyptic levels. The kings of budget rock still did their thing, however, even with forces conspiring to contain the mummies’ curse.
Sometimes you are pleasantly sideswiped by some unknown band that kicks more ass than the headliner. Hell-Racer was that band. With their leather biker hats, iron crosses and eye shadow, they were something between a glam version of Marlon Brando in The Wild One and extras from a Suehiro Maruo manga. They weren’t shy about refurbishing every rocking riff from the 50’s and 60’s with a thick coat of reverb and distortion, but that’s the point! Any band that can seamlessly slip a couple bars of The Munsters theme into a song deserves your time.
LOS RIZLAZ were another unexpected treat that I would have liked to have seen come out before I was dead on my feet. Having never considered myself a sax guy, the last few shows I've been to have forced me to reconsider my position. Even if you think the luchador gig is played out, these guys have such an authentic vibe that you can't help but smile.
Call me an old man if it gets you off, but the night would have been far less grueling had the DJs turned it down a notch. The dance floor was a graveyard past midnight save for a few straggling ghouls, so who are they trying to fool? Unless you like having to communicate in screams and wild hand gestures all night, in which case you're ruining it for the rest of us.
Wandering the backstreets of Kabukicho waiting for the trains to start was surreal. Here's all the hosts coming off work hee-hawing at our costumes, when they're the ones wearing a fake set of skin every day. Get with the program, Japan! You were made for Halloween.
This is the only shot we managed to get at the show. We were given a warning to put our camera away, only to see everyone else in the club taking pics left and right. Shiiiiiit.
Kaiju Blue brings the American Halloween spirit of creep-out and gore to Shinjuku with their exhibition of monster masks and photography by special effects school Amazing School Jur. This is the same team responsible for the putrid princess fashion show at Design Festa, so you know we're talking about the best in the business.
This is just a taste of the ghastly decor. Normally Shinjuku is nothing more than a bump in the road to someplace more interesting, but with exhibits like these you have a compelling reason to stop by the arsehole of Tokyo.
Students from Amazing School Jur will be there through Halloween to give you the self-mutilation version of a temporary tattoo. I would get phantom pains every time I looked at my hand, but maybe it was just the latex pulling my skin. Check their blog for more info and details about their special demonstration on Halloween!
BACK FROM THE GRAVE 20th ANNIVERSARY! HALLOWEEN BALL 09 "RETURN OF THE MuMMiES"
LOFT INFO 03-5272-0382 Open/Start 19:00 adv ¥3000 / door ¥3500
BAND： THE MuMMiES（from USA) THE 5,6,7,8'S JACKIE & THE CEDRICS JET BOYS THE RAYDIOS SUPERSNAZZ HELL-RACER THE GREAT MONGOOSE 荒馬車ブレイメン THE TITANS THE GO-DEVILS LOS RIZLAZ THE THUNDERROADS SATURNS THE MINNESOTA VOO DOO MEN THE MIGHTY MOGULS THE FADEAWAYS THEEE BAT STOMPIN' REFF RAFFS THE FEMININE ザ・シャロウズ (The Shallows) etc...
Lawson ticket code: 71572
I would pay double just to see the four headliners! If you are in Tokyo, there is no excuse to not go to this party. The next day The Mummies are also playing with Guitar Wolf!
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