A while back I did an article called ‘The Horrors of jPop‘ which was great fun to write and was generally well received. It earned me a few hate mail but in general people enjoyed it, so I’ve wanted to do another ‘horrors’ update for a while. So you can imagine how happy I was when this popped up on Mainichi;

A female duo dressed as characters from Hayao Miyazaki’s animated film “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” qualified to represent Japan in the upcoming “World Cosplay Summit 2008″ after winning the Tokyo qualifying round on Sunday.

Now I’m not going to lie - I know basically nothing about the weird world of cosplay. I don’t watch any anime or read any manga, so I don’t recognise the characters these guys are dressing up as. Actually, if I posted pictures of them on this blog and made fun of them, it would be totally unfair hilarious. So without further ado;

So we start our tour of horrors on a great foot, and a fantastic pair of ears. These guys must be able to hear fake tan salesmen coming from miles away. I can’t make out what it says on those little wooden things she’s holding up, but I assume it’s instructions to help you turn your shower curtain into a cool outfit, just like these guys did.

Next we have the super cardboard robot. In case you’re wondering about the horn, his mother was a unicorn. If you’re wondering about the giant cardboard knees, his father was…er… well I don’t know. So why did this guy make it into the update? One word. Chafing.

Apparently this giant vegetable is from some Studio Ghibli film but regardless if I walked into that room and saw that I’d be out in a flash. Notice that it is in the process of devouring a spider. That girl is awfully close considering it’s a giant cauliflower with eight eyes.

The brightly colored twins spot another free hair dye sample. The girl on the left has gone for the Windows 3.1 teal screen saver look, always a bold choice. She’s easily beaten by her friend, however, who has gone for the always popular ‘rabbit goes insane, dresses like milk carton’ look.

You can’t quite see it in this photo, but this performer’s just taken their hands off an electric fence. Ok, I do know who this character is meant to be, I’m not that far behind. It’s Pikachu.

Cauliflower girl has managed to escape from her killer plant, and everyone who’s dressed as oddly as she is rushes to celebrate. Another safe day in cosplay land.

Ok, I had far, far too much fun writing those comments. Sorry if they were too mean. If there’s one of these conventions on in the summer when I’m out there, I’m totally going with my camera. I promise.

Mainichi reported a pretty sad story today;

A traditional dancing ceremony in which baby girls ride piggyback on dancers was held in the Sagata district of Akune, Kagoshima Prefecture, with about 400 people taking part.

Alright, so it’s not really that sad a story. Baby girls bouncing around on dancers, hopefully not crying and everyone having a good time. It’s much happier for this kids than the crying sumo competition, that’s for sure!

However…

Due to declining birth rates, the number of babies taking part has declined each year, and in the ceremony on Monday, there was only one baby — 6-month-old Kaho Fukuda.

That poor girl! All that pressure and expectation to perform well! The festival is for baby girls born in the Sagata district, and apparently she was the only one for the festival. The poor kid. Apparently she rode on the back of her parents and grandmother, as well as other participants. Sounds like a case of “pass the baby” here. If you guys want a kid, have one! Hey, that could be a slogan to stop Japan’s declining birth rate.

Kaho rode on the backs of her parents and other participants for over an hour. After looking around at the cameras focused on her, she fell fast asleep, bringing a peaceful mood to the event venue.

Stuck on a dancing back for an hour. I think I’d fall asleep too. Good for Kaho, I say. So as a tribute to the one and only performer this year, here’s her picture. While she was still awake.

Awwwww….

Sometimes, and it is pretty rare, a news headline pops up on my Google page that literally forces me to stop doing everything I’m meant to be getting on with and read it. The crying baby sumos managed to stop me studying Kanji for an hour, as did the pen-spinning championships. Usually when this happens the story is quite good, and often I can turn it into an article here on JID.

This one was no exception. According to the BBC;

A Japanese company is developing a vending machine that counts wrinkles and skin sags to check a smoker’s age.

It plans to use face recognition technology to prevent anyone under the legal age of 20 buying cigarettes.

That’s right! Whilst I’m not a smoker I do pity my poor friends who, when they run out of cigarettes and need to buy some more, need to spend a few minutes standing in front of a vending machine trying to look old. The problem is pretty rife in Japan, a lot of school kids do smoke, but there must be a more logical solution. Oh, hang on… this was in the same article;

Purchasers who failed a digital camera “age test” would need to show the machine an ID card to establish they were legally allowed to smoke.

So hang on. You have to do the digital camera thing first, and if that fails then go on to insert a card into the machine? Am I the only one who sees the logical flaw here? I’m not exactly the most devious person (believe it or not…) but if I were 16 and wanted a smoke I’d probably get someone who looked older than me to stand in front of the camera. Something tells me it’s a lot easier to trick the camera than the card reader.

The company says the system gets it right in nine out of ten cases. The remaining 10% would be sent to a “grey zone for baby-faced adults” where they would be asked to insert their driving licence or identification card.

“Get your smokes here! Anyone over 20 welcome! Unless you look quite young, in which case welcome to what we professionals call the baby-faced adults grey zone”. Doesn’t really have much of a ring to it. I say people who fail the test should be sent to a government building, where they have their face rubbed with sandpaper until they look older. Problem solved!

There is one glaring omission on the part of the developers. You see, whilst it may work 9 times out of 10 at spotting that people are old enough, what about children who look older than they are? I can see kids walking around Tokyo with clothing pegs all over their faces trying to make wrinkles. Plus, you know who else would be able to get away with underage smoking?

This guy would have no problems fooling these machines! (Unless there’s a “No smoking for people with tiny eyes” rule in action!)

So I’m sorry guys, but it doesn’t look like these new machines are the way forward. Too many old looking kids and rhinos smoking in the streets. Keep trying, though! How about a vending machine that smokes for you? All the enjoyment, none of the side effects!