Japan loves their mascots and all of us at Tofugu love writing about how much Japan loves their mascots. It’s a love-love relationship, really. Anyway, what could be better than a Japanese mascot? How about a Japanese mascot dancing? Yeah, now that’s more like it. There couldn’t possibly be anything more disgustingly adorable than that, right? Wrong. Try 141 mascots dancing in unison on for size – now that’s kawaii, man.
Kawaii Overloooooad
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Over the weekend, 141 brave souls dressed up as mascots from 25 prefectures across Japan and made history. They gathered in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, to break all the records and become the largest group of mascots to do the same dance together. Truly, so impressive a feat will not again be seen in our lifetime.
The song they’re dancing to in the video above is called “The Beard Dance”. A Japanese comedy band known as The Drifters is responsible for this monstrosity. Unfortunately for the mascots and everyone involved, the song is incredibly repetitive and annoying. Be prepared to go insane if you listen to it for the full 5 minutes.
To break the record, the mascots couldn’t just flop around as they pleased for 5 minutes. They had to be in the zone, man – in the zone! They had to like, dance in synchronized unison and stuff. If more than 5% of the mascots screwed up, they’d be denied the world record and bring endless amounts of shame upon themselves and their mascot families.
Fortunately they were allowed multiple tries because they failed twice before finally getting it right. After they nailed it on the third try, “We Are the Champions” started blaring and all the mascots went berserk. They were more excited than any mascot had ever been before. If only their faces could convey emotion.
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And for those of you who want to view one of their mind numbingly repetitive performances in its entirety, check the video above. I dunno about you, but that one girl mascot at the end dancing all by herself with no music really creeps me out. She gives me the willies.
Also, I realize that the people are in big, cumbersome mascot suits, but I was really hoping to see a bit more action out of this synchronized “dance”. Sure, they may have cinched the record in the end, but they certainly did not do it with enough pizzazz and style to impress me! Maybe next time they can include some cartwheels and back flips.
Mascots, Mascots Everywhere
As many of you probably know by now, it’s not surprising that there are enough mascots in Japan to put together a feat like this. Everything from recycling promotions to city governments has mascots. They’re responsible for just about everything. Promoting tourism, teaching kids to recycle, discovering cures for cancer, you name it – there’s a Japanese mascot on the case.
To learn more about these lovable mascots, or yuru kyara (gentle characters) as they’re known, you can check out Hashi’s full write up on them and a handful of the wackiest town mascots Japan has to offer in his post about them here.
And since Hashi loves Japanese mascots more than the rest of the Tofugu team combined (that’s a lot!), he also wrote a post about Kumamon, the cuddly black bear that sings him lullabies each night and makes him waffles every morning. Okay, so maybe Kumamon doesn’t actually do that. Hashi just wishes he did. One day, my friend – one day.
So tell me, what do you think about this record breaking event? Which one of the 141 mascots busting a move was your favorite? Let us know in the comments!
Sources:
RocketNews24