Buck-Tickitty

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In case you haven't heard the news, Buck-Tick have jumped on the kitty wagon. And no, I don't mean this kitty wagon.

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I mean the HELLO wagon.

As in, the Hello Kitty Wagon.

What does this involve, you ask?  Well the truth of the matter is that this year, Ms. Hello Kitty herself is turning 40.  We had long suspected based on her age that she probably harbored a secret crush on Buck-Tick...after all, here in Japan, women around age 40 are the band's primary fan demographic.  Now, we have confirmation.  In honor of her 40th birthday, Ms. Kitty used her star power to reach out to a number of her favorite musicians, including our favorite musicians, Cat-Tick, I mean, Buck-Kit, I mean, Buck-Tickitty - and an all-new Buck-Tickitty smartphone case was born.

It looks like this:

Note that Yutaka is smaller than the other Buck-Tickitties. However, Toll appears to be the tallest of all, and I'm honestly not sure what's up with that, since, just between you and me, without his mohawk, Toll isn't a whole lot taller than Yutaka.  Naturally, Acchan-chan appears the most zen about having been turned into a female kitten, though Imai's rocking it pretty well, too, but Hide appears to be protesting by refusing to let go of his beard. And let's be honest...dressed like that, he's going to need all the beards he can get :P

Anyhoo, the Buck-Tickitty case is available in various sizes that fit all major smartphone models on the Japanese market.  Sales open from 7PM tonight, which is slightly more than 4 hours away by my watch.  The price is 3300 yen including tax, excluding shipping. If you'd like Cayce to help you order one, just shoot me an email.

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In the meantime, honor Ms. Kitty by feasting your eyes upon this Harajuku dubstep extravaganza by Canadian Hot Topic poster child, Avril Lavigne. 

Word has it that when this music video debuted, it was initially pulled from YouTube due to allegations of being "extremely racist." To which, as a person who personally lives in Harajuku about 170.2 days per year, I have to say...you people, do you know what the phrase "extremely racist" actually means?

This video was filmed on location in Harajuku, so for those of you who don't know: yes Harajuku actually looks like that.  In fact, I can see that candy store out the window of my room as I write this! Also, the extras and dancers who appear are all actually Japanese, some of them clearly picked up off the street as the video was being filmed (check out the sequence at the end!) White North American whiners can whine all they want that Avril is using her backup dancers as props, that the Japanese girls are merely supporting Avril in her self-involved whiteness in a foreign land, but the fact remains that almost any girl off the street in Harajuku would jump at the chance to appear in an Avril Lavigne video and her friends would all be foaming at the mouth with jealousy.

And as to the lyrics...

Come, come, kitty kitty, you're so pretty pretty
Come come kitty kitty stay with me

Is this a denigrating perpetuation of the stereotype of Asian women as sexually permissive? Or is it a blossoming bicurious love song sung by one lady to another lady's...um...pussycat? YOU DECIDE. All I know is that where I come from, telling a girl's "kitty" to "come" is less racist than it is racy. Therefore, I think it's awfully queer strange that people misinterpreted this very gay happy and positive song as derogatory.

To my mind, the only mis-step here is the fact that no one who values a hangover-free tomorrow would drink Jiro shochu out of the bottle.

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HELLO KITTY!