…what do you think this costume is supposed to be?
What about this one?
Well… I’ll tell you in a minute, but let me very quickly run over the history of Halloween
in Japan. I'll be fast, I promise.
Halloween was apparently brought to Japan by US Military personnel in the 80s. But it
didn’t really pop off until the 90s, helped by theme parks like Tokyo Disneyland hosting
gigantic Halloween events. Additionally, a massive annual Halloween parade started in
1997 in Kawasaki.
In recent years, however, Halloween has become a bit of a party holiday. There’s no trick-or-treating
– just drinking, clubbing, and girls taking pictures of themselves in cute costumes for
Instagram. City centres like Shibuya fall into chaos. But in 2014, a company called
“Daily Portal Z”, had a new idea to change things up a bit. Its Chief Editor, Mr. Hayashi,
says that after watching people who have one day of the year to finally wear WHATEVER THEY
WANT, choosing toall go out to Shibuya wearing the exact same costume to frolic around, he
had a different idea. He started 地味ハロウィン, Mundane Halloween, to give Japanese people
a platform to show off their boring-but-clever costumes. The costumes are supposed to be
so plain that it feels like a quiz to try to guess what they are. It’s become incredibly
popular in Japan over the past few years
So I’ll ask again – what is this costume?
You might've got that it was a person being covered by sand -- but it's not just that.
It's actually part of a spa treatment in Japan.
So, that's what this video is. I combed over the costumes from this year, and years prior
to find the best ones to show you. Some of them require Japan-specific knowledge to understand,
so I'll be here to explain them. Let's get started.
This one is “Guy who found a cockroach right before he was about to go to bed”
This one is a reference to a very common trend on Japanese TV. Right before a commercial
break, a SURPRISE GUEST will often appear with their face covered by this little graphic
so that you have to stick around to see who it was. This guy is wearing the little graphic
as a mask!
Here we have “Keanu Reeves Eating Alone”
This guy, who just barely didn’t make it into the thumbnail for this video, is obviously
“Guy walking into the wind”
You might be able to get this one by the clothes -- it's Middle School Kid Whose Mom Bought
Him a Uniform that is Too Big
This one is, someone whose hobby is taking pictures of trains… hmm… have we ever
seen someone like that before?
You might be able to get this one, it's one of my favourites. She's a "free stock photo"
Here we have “Guy who will absolutely not look when you’re typing your PIN in”.
This blue change tray is ubiquitous in Japan – you’ll see it everywhere you go.
Ubiquitous... is that what ubiquitous means??
If you can guess what this guy's costume is supposed to be, I'll actually be impressed,
so pause the video if you need some time. Good luck.
The answer is "corn." If you got it, let me know in the comments, cuz I sure didn't.
Here we have, guy who got his headphones caught when trying to get off the train.
This girl did an alright job at “Person Faceswapping with Starbucks cup”
But this guy who absolutely crushed it.
There are a lot related to current events: This guy is Elon Musk at Twitter HQ
And here we have, guy who got fired from Twitter.
This person, dressed as one of the Van Gogh Climate Protesters, called their costume “Person
who causes trouble at an art gallery”.
This girl went as “Old karaoke music video that doesn’t match the lyrics”.
Having the actual music video on Karaoke machines is a relatively recent development in Japan,
and there are a lot of songs that still don’t have them. For those songs, the machine defaults
to these premade music videos, oftentimes just random B-roll footage of people walking
around or whatever. This girl’s costume involves a transparent piece of what appears
to be glass with the lyrics sounding like a fight between a couple – contrasted with
the nice smiling face, recreating the weird-feeling mismatch.
This one is… pretty obvious – guy who shook his carbonated beverage. The mask is
incredibly intricate and well-designed.
This guy is “Brazilian Soccer Player who got injured in the 24th minute of the second
half”. Why the 24th minute of the second half? I
have no idea, I don't watch soccer. But I might, cuz Canada's in the world cup this
year guys!! No just kidding I'm still not gonna watch. But if you know why his costume
is the 24th minute of the second half, let me know in the comments!
This is “People working at a blood drive”. Seeing blood drives going on outside in Japan
is pretty common, especially in places with lots of foot-traffic. At least in my experience.
By the way, apparently they were able to buy this banner on Amazon.
This guy’s gimmick is that he goes as background characters from Jojo. This costume was from
2019, here’s 2020… and 2021… okay, actually, it turns out he’s done like 50 cosplays
of random Jojo background characters. I’ll put the link in the description.
This fellow just went as "foreigner" and was received quite well.
A foreigner who accidentally bought dog food – I’ve actually heard of this happening
before
Another foreigner costume, this guy went as a tourist who can’t find a garbage bin for
his empty cans. The lack of garbage bins can be a serious problem for tourists in Japan.
The reason for this, in case you didn’t know, is because of an event that happened
in the 90s where a cult called the A** Shin******* carried out an a***** using the garbage cans.
I’m sure there are a ton of videos talking about this on YouTube already so I’ll move
on.
Here we have a very cute “Zookeeper with pandas clinging to their legs”
A kiwi
A melon-pan, which is a well-known Japanese pastry
And a chicken curry.
This guy went as the little window where they serve you ramen at the restaurant 一蘭。
This is what the real one looks like
This guy’s costume is “Guy who had Curry Udon for lunch”. I'm hungry after looking
at these costumes...
Here we have, “Guy trying to squeeze out the last bit of toothpaste”
I like this one because you see it a lot on the Japanese internet. This masked lady is
dressed as “Person who has their face hidden by a sticker”. Japanese people highly value
anonymity online and it’s incredibly common to see things like people hiding the face
of random strangers who ended up in the background of their selfies, or people showing their
face but hiding all of their friends’ in group pictures.
These guys’ costume is “Youtubers giving an apology after online backlash”. Yep,
they have online drama in Japan too haha
Here we have, from left to right: Newscaster who is made to report from outside
on a rainy day Girl who went outside underprepared despite
there being a typhoon Live coverage of typhoon
Typhoons are a big thing in Japan. I’ll tell a typhoon story at the end of this video.
This girl’s costume is “Person who is about to get on the Kodama bullet train”.
The Kodama train is the slowest bullet train, taking almost 4 hours to go from Tokyo to
Osaka, compared to the norm of two and a half hours.
Why would anyone ride this, you might ask? Well luckily I’ve ridden it so I can answer.
A lot of people use a system called ぷらっとこだま which is a way to buy discount tickets on
the Kodama, so it can be significantly cheaper than other methods. Furthermore, the faster
bullet trains don’t stop at certain stations, so sometimes you have to ride it.
This guy's costume is obviously "guy with the longest fingernails in the world". I remember
seeing someone like this in my Guinness books as a kid. Shoutout to everyone who got the
Guinness Book of World Records for Christmas as a kid.
This person is dressed up as… No, not Mr. Peanut. The logo for Komeda Coffee, which
is a large chain of cafes in Japan.
You might think this guy’s costume is a Key, but…
nah, just kidding. He’s a key.
This guy is doing the Chuunibyou pose from this famous Japanese meme picture. For a more
in-depth explanation about this very important Japanese concept, check my video “The Most
Shocking Japanese Internet Mystery”.
You might be able to guess this one – it’s Google Street View!
Have you seen the Netflix show “Old Enough”? It’s a famous Japanese show where they send
a young child to do an errand unsupervised, and record it. That’s what this costume
is! The two people in the back have cameras, with
one of them disguising theirs in a cardboard box.
By the way, apparently these three people all came to the event separately and didn't
know eachother. They all just had similar inspiration for their costume.
What do you think this girl’s costume is? If you guessed “Person who is working from
home but only wears the top half of the uniform”, you’re correct!
I know you can get this one! He’s soy sauce!
Remember three videos ago when I told you about the Japanese restaurant Yayoiken, and
how they have unlimited rice refills? This guy’s costume is “Guy who is looking for
the rice refill area at Yayoiken” Wow, he's literally me!
I asked my Japanese friend for full context on this one. She says that after every semester
of Japanese school, students must bring all their things home. In the summer semester
of elementary school, students grow a Morning Glory flower and when the semester ends they
bring it home for the summer. This guy’s costume is an elementary school kid who failed
to bring everything home little by little over the days prior and now has to bring everything
home at once on the final day.
Remember this? Mr. Hayashi, who made this whole tradition? He went as a Level 10 Mafia
Right Hand Man. Yes. They had those dumb phone game ads in Japan too.
And finally, this one. This one is fun. These people are dressed as a commercial for basically
magnifying reading glasses. Mostly for old people. It’s called Hazuki Loupe, and it's
pretty famous. The commercial they’re emulating is starring Kikukawa Rei and Watanabe Ken.
Yes, the guy from Inception. The commercials are famous for being
a little bit... uhhh...
I checked the Nicopedia article for Hazuki Loupe and it’s hilarious. It starts with
really tiny, unreadable text, and then says a quote right from the commercial: "It's too
small, I can't read it!"
“but if you put on Hazuki Loupe…” and then has massive font for the rest of the
article.
Hazuki Loupe has always been one of my favourite Japanese memes so I am happy I got to finally
include it in a video.
Okay, I promised a Typhoon-related personal story, right? Japan gets a few typhoons every
summer, and in 2013, I was about to experience my first. Everyone I talked to would bring
it up nonstop and all of my friends cancelled our plans for the days surrounding the typhoon
so I was expecting a natural disaster. I was living in the most run-down apartment you
can possibly imagine - it was super old, cockroaches everywhere, mould in the walls… but the
rent was $200/month and I was too young to care about the other stuff. Anyways, I thought
the entire building was gonna collapse from the typhoon, I was frightened. Once it came
though, I felt like an idiot. It was honestly just a bit of rain.
Fast-forward a few years, I was in Osaka for the summer, and I had a second date planned
with a girl I was really excited to see, when the typhoon came again... It was a relatively
light typhoon, this time too, so I shot my shot and asked if she was down to meet up
anyways. She, surprisingly, said yes… and we ended up spending the evening walking around
in the heavy rain, popping in and out of bars and stuff. Yes we got completely drenched
but it was honestly the closest I’ve ever been to a scene from a romance movie. We got
to experience a summer evening in Shinsaibashi, one of the busiest parts of Osaka, completely
devoid of people under incredible weather conditions. I
I wouldn’t recommend underestimating typhoons, though. It’s not a good idea. They can hit
Japan really hard,I just got lucky.
Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this video, please consider subscribing.
If you’re desperate for Japanalysis content, I actually do upload unscripted content on
my patreon sometimes. I have three videos on there, with more coming in the future,
and it’s available for only tree-fiddy. Shoutout to patrons Jason the Artist and Andre
Schneider.
Oh yeah, and shoutout to the YouTuber Sumitomedia for shouting me out randomly a few months
ago, and mentoring me behind the scenes. He’s such a nice guy!
See you next time!