Hikado

"They're painful. So painful that pedestrians can't help staring at them," Minoru Matsutani writes in The Japan Times. "The heavily decorated vehicles called itasha have been experiencing a nationwide resurgence lately, reflecting Japan's animé craze. Combining the words itai (painful) and sha (vehicle), itasha are literally 'painful cars' with exteriors pimped out in tacky illustrations or stickers of female animation characters." They are popular with single men in their 20s and 30s. "We like animé characters and want to show off. It's as simple as that," said "Sabugoro," a 28-year-old from Kawasaki. But they use common sense. "We tell each other to stop the engines and follow the traffic rules. None of us parks illegally."

# posted by rambaldidevice @ 5:11 PM