Look, I don't drink.
That leaves me with a lot of free time. Free time that I usually try and use to be productive and creative and do things that generally keep me out of jail. Therefor, when someone tips me on something, I have a little more time than most to go poking around, digging up way too much information on subjects that most people probably think are, well, a little silly. Like this Tarako Tarako Tarako thing.
See, Japanator is still pretty young, and I think they missed this the first time around. At the time they were probably still trying to be a credible source for anime and manga coverage and all that serious journalistic stuff. Well, now here I am, bringing down the ship with this eight or nine month old fad. Go ahead and call me your elitist names. I don't care. It has eaten my soul, and the only way to rid myself of the curse is to pass it on to you. You know, like Sadako. Sadako. Sadako.
This all 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.
Blame Kitsune for the tip.
I saw those creepy adverts on a constant repeat in some Tokyo arce when I was over there last New Year's, I really had no idea what they were, or what their purpose was besides the obvious unholy soul-stealing of course)
Thank you for making me relive the memories I had succesfully repressed in the back of my brain along with Man-Faye and Hard Gay.....Aw damnit >_
I've always thought the whole thing is subconsciously phallic. Look at the "PV" where the little girls are pressing a lever, and the tarako toys either move from side to side or spin. Put two prepubescent girls in the same picture as a bunch of moving blobs (of a certain shape...) and you'll get the weird feeling that the Tarako marketers are out to get us.
Ok so, "tarako" in Nihongo (Japanese) is "cod eggs" don't ask me why or how I know this, I just do. But, still, they're dance friggin rox! XD and the songs good to LOL ^.^
