Kigurumi

Kigurumi started with Kewpie, a company that makes all sorts of food stuffs, from pasta sauce to salads to eggs, as well as "fine chemicals." But we don't really care about their better living through chemistry company line. What we're interested in is this crazy ad campaign featuring little kids with red blobs on their heads. What I can only assume began as an innocent commercial soon mutated into a giant red blob of insanity. At least two CDs and a DVD were released featuring the song and the dance. The two girls appeared on TV shows, including Music Station, a show normally reserved for only the biggest music superstars of the moment.

Oh, I suppose you may be asking yourself, "What is this red blob on their heads? How did it get there? My god, what have they done?!" Tarako is cod roe. Fish eggs. These girls are dancing fish eggs. Not only that, but they sing a siren song powerful enough to lure millions of Spartans to a happy death. It's hypnotic. It should be labeled a weapon of mass destruction, or at least mass distraction. Let's take a sort of back-to-front look at what has become my obsession for at least an hour or so.



First off, here's a link to the lyrics and a translation. The best bit?

They come all year round They come in a matching mass of red Squishy, squishy, squelchy, squelchy cod egg visitors Lots of little tiny, tiny cod egg visitors Before you know it, they’re in your mouth Before you know it, they’re in your dreams

No frickin' kidding.

Music Station Performance



Here's their Music Station performance. I find myself absolutely transfixed by the lone tarako that's wobbling around in the background. I know it's just some dude in a costume, but at the same time, it's like some alien visitor that's starring into my mind, slowly making me one of them. One of them. One of...

Christmas Version



It's a scientific fact that by simply adding sleigh bells to a song, you can transform it from a bland every day song about fish eggs jumping into your mouth, to one about fish eggs jumping into your mouth on Christmas. I love how the horizontal tarako hat girl flinches when the tarako doll makes a move to bite her face off.

CM



Here we have a few commercials. This one is probably my favorite, just because the girl in it has exactly the same expression that I've had while working on this post. Oh, and what's with the weird cross shape behind her?

CM



If every commercial were produced with this simple, clean, pastel aesthetic I would certainly watch a lot more television. Anyone else think it's strange that they seem to all be set in Denmark or Germany or something? It's as if an Ikea fell on top of Takashi Miike.

CM



I believe that this is the commercial that started it all. You might think it's the most sane of them all, but you'd be tragically mistaken. It's so messed up that time and space fold in upon themselves and cancel out the majority of strangeness. Watch it a few times. Then you'll see what I mean.

This Will Haunt My Dreams For Years



This might actually be a trailer of the next Clive Barker movie. It's tough to tell. OK, I have to go and totally not buy that DVD collection. Hey, it's either that, or an icepick to the ear.