Ah Japan; is there no end to your bizarre strangeness? Is there no repose from the mountains of bizarre commercials, strange vending machines and weird Anime about people gaining the power to see into the future and then killing each other for the position of God? I hope not, I have way too much fun with it, and that’s before we get into their car customization.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m still one of those guys that would like every car to remain the same as the day it came from the factory. In my life the most extensive mod I’ve done to my car’s style was installing an Apple sticker on the back window. Changing rims is only something you do if the ones that came with the car have been well and truly FUBAR. I get considerably more excited about a 1993 Civic DX that still has its original rims, stereo and some shine on its paint than I ever could about (yet) a(nother) 1970 Challenger restomod, no matter how much power that tuned Hellcat powertrain sends to those 22″s. But to see how far the Japanese have taken the art of customizing is amazing in and of itself.
The style you may be the most familiar with is VIP style, where luxury cars (as tragically displayed here with the best car Toyota makes) get lowered and acquire handling-killing camber in addition to the usual lights and pearlescent paint. It’s sort of Stance on Steroids really. But to get to the good ones you have to dig a little deeper. And there’s Dekotora, where trucks are modified with giant spoilers and so many lights that they make the Griswold’s household at Christmastime look like a black hole.
There’s their strange fixation with Chevrolet Astro vans, as covered by Paul.
And then there’s the cause for this article, Itasha, where fans of Anime and Manga bestow their chariots with as many representations of their favorite anime character as they can manage to find. The results are either strange or disturbing depending on how you look at it. Although considering that the accepted translation for itasha is “Painful Car” you can probably imagine the reaction of painful embarrassment is the normal one even among the Japanese. Which is remarkable when we take into account their seemingly endless appetite for the weird
For reference purposes, this Spongebob Squarepants-themed Donk is pretty much the same concept, just Americanized. And, even though Itasha cars are still on that border between strange and ridiculous, it’s always good to remember that watching middle-aged, sober-minded, respectable business man reading the latest edition of their favorite manga on the way to the office is perfectly normal in Japan. Whereas watching a businessman reading a Marvel or DC comic on his way to work here usually means that he works at Marvel or DC.
But Itasha itself is actually an accepted car modifying culture. The best example of this is the car you see above, the Good Smile Racing BMW Z4 Super GT racing car. That very car won the 2011 Super GT GT300 championship while sporting a Hatsune Miku livery. Miku is the most popular mascot of the Vocaloid voice synthesizer program and star of the strangest Toyota Corolla commecial on this side of the pond.
Yes. Seriously. I actually had to double check on Youtube if that ad really existed and I hadn’t just imagined it on a 3:00 AM fever dream brought on by a late-night anime binge and a double dose of cough syrup. Alas.
And, because there’s nothing really scared in the world of cars if you have enough money, here’s an Itasha Lancia Stratos. With a Bonus Lamborghini Gallardo in the background.
And here’s an F-Body Camaro in case that the content of Americana on this article is too low for the ISO CC standards.
And now that you have sat through sevaral hundred words about the subject as I tried to explain what has to be one of the strangest things to come out of Japan, I’d like you, our best and brightest, to tell me what you think about it. Weird? Desperate? Innocent? All in good fun? I’m genuinely curious about it. In the meantime, I’ll find something to watch on Crunchyroll. After watching the one I talked about in the beginning of the article, I think something more relaxing is in order. Like the one about the teenage girl who actually is god, but she doesn’t know it. If she gets bored and finds out, it’s Armageddon.
OK, I’m a fan of anime, have been for a few decades although my tastes stop somewhere in the 90’s and my collection is still on VHS. There is something classy about itasha that a Sponge Bob Squarepants donk is never, ever, ever, going to duplicate. I find a lot of those itasha cars very attractive.
Probably to do with, in the examples shown, the irashas have a certain delicateness to them, while that donk is about as delicate as a twenty pound sledgehammer.
Too weird for me. Portland is too weird for me… And to think this from a country that brought us the brilliant ’73 900 Z1…
That poor Stratos :'(
Not my style. That Stratos also has the Alitalia logo that was used over white during its peak years.
What the story with the green ‘pickup’ on the cover shot. Is that just a fastback sans rear glass?
I may be wrong, but I think that one used to be an S13 Nissan 180SX/240SX.
Good call. Silvero.
Could be sans glass, but there are a few other be-ute-ified (ha!) Nissans in the drift scene that have had metal surgery. I’ve seen R32 Skyline and C33 Laurel sedans turned into utes, but starting with a Skyline coupe gives the best El Camino flavour due to the longer doors with frameless glass and forward-angled B-pillar. Of course regardless of sedan or coupe base, the result usually looks a tad too stubby.
An acquaintance builds Stratos replicas (he works for one of NZ’s Lancia specialists), his personal one is magnificent and virtually indistinguishable from the real thing; one wonders if the orange one above is a replica too. Given that itasha is probably the opposite of my style, I hope it isn’t a genuine Stratos…
Nissan S13 sans hatch and lateral glass.
Someone had fun with a Sawzall for some weight reduction.
Here in Australia we have a lot of students from Asia – some from Japan but more from other parts of Asia, in particular Singapore, Malaysia etc. These guys all seem to like their customised Japanese cars – Skylines, Subarus, Toyotas/Lexus and Hondas seem to prevail. We call them rice rockets. Indeed, quite a few of the local lads are now quite partial to these cars as well, which is a change as the Australian youth car culture always tended to be centred around larger GM and Ford offerings with V8’s.
Anyway, I live on a road in Brisbane that is regarded as a top driving road – plenty of tight corners, beautiful scenery and all this close to the city centre. Weekends the road is full of motorbikes but during the week at night its the rice rockets! If I go to the balcony I can hear the turbo waste gates and engines revving followed by the screech of tyres as they take off. Very often this is followed by the noise of the siren of an ambulance or rescue vehicle…..
The horrors… I bet you have also spotted Channel 9’s ACA van in there.
“I get considerably more excited about a 1993 Civic DX that still has its original rims, stereo and some shine on its paint”
You’d love my next door neighbor’s car. An all-original, completely unmolested 1993 Civic Si hatchback, wearing correct original wheel covers and in that perfectly 90’s shade of aqua/teal. He says he has guys coming up to him asking if it’s for sale almost every time he drives it; the answer is always “nope”!
Fun fact about the Lancia Stratos and the Lamborghini Gallardo: the owner of the cars is the creator of the characters depicted on them. Yoshimune Kouki and his series Muv-Luv. The character on the Stratos is even depicted driving it in the series.