'AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH seizure!'

This is what happens when cool people do cool things

The cool people in this case are Takashi Murakami, Todd Cole and err... Britney Spears

It's cool okay! *crazy granny eye twitch face* 

Now usually I don't care alot about the whole Japanese 'Kawaii' thing but I think this is so kitsch and shiny and annoying that I love it. It's like actual teen Japanese magazine's. 

            

    

Except a lot better. And a lot less scary. And freakish. And seizure inducing. But anyway Britney was wearing CLOTHES! 

by Rodarte, I didn't pick it up till I read it somewhere and realised how great it was that she was wearing CLOTHES! by Rodarte. It somehow doesn't seem right that something so cutesy-ish and flowerbed-ish and rainbow-ish would be styled with Rodarte's clothes. Their stuff is all eerie alien-ish kinda glow-in-the-dark draping (that actually happened. omg.). (wow I sound so professional)But somehow it all blended in and managed to work really really well. 

Britney was such a great choice for the cover, not just because she looks the part but because of her as place, after Madonna, as queen of pop culture. It's funny that she's being portrayed as an innocent school girl, pure, virginal in the Rodarte wedding dress when we're so used to seeing Britney being well, not pure, virginal or innocent. But I guess it was just another way of channelling Japanese culture. Compared with the western world's womanly approach to sex symbols and pop culture, Japan seems to focus around youth, proper youth. Not like twenty year olds and stuff, but children and teens. Many people from Japan dress this way, in that Little Bo Peep thing that they do. Here, on the cover of Pop, Britney wears a back-pack,  lace socks and a (kinda) conservative swimsuit. All paired with cartoons and bright colours with that innocent half smile so juvenile in nature. To some, the cover looks a little disturbing. Especially, if you keep in mind she's actually 28, with kids and has done a jail sentence. But that's Kinderwhore for you. 

It's funny to see western society's impact on Japanese pop culture. On the 'zine covers above, all the cover models have dyed brown or blonde hair, which is odd because like all Japanese people have black hair. I mean it's like compulsory for all their genes and chromosomes and stuff. (hmmm should work on articulating words...) AND they all have english titles and have used English writing and/or numerals on all of them. I swear, from the cover, Vogue Nihon seems to have more english in it than Japanese.  

Apparently, according to my old Japanese teacher, Japanese kids are generally younger in the head than kids in western society. I wonder if that is a result of pop culture, or their brand of pop culture came from them? Oh great another chicken and the egg question. Or maybe the kids in Japan are the normal ones, and the western world is indeed sexualizing children. Oh god I reeally don't want to go down that road on the tangent train. But anyway, since I am not Japanese will most likely never go to Japan, I will probably never know for sure where it all starts. 

So yes, if you look at the Japanese covers very closely you wi- AAAAAAAAGHHHHH seizure!!!...