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Japan’s anime-loving cringeworthy car owners don’t care what you think. Meet the ‘itasha’ aficionados
- ‘Itasha’ means cringeworthy car, reflecting the misfit image the vehicles had when they first started appearing on Japanese roads around 20 years ago
- But perceptions have begun to change, with anime and other hobby subcultures gaining a new mainstream acceptance in Japan
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Yosuke Takahata doesn’t care what people think of his itasha, which has his favourite anime character – a sexy, red-eyed horse-woman – emblazoned across both sides.
For him and other owners around Japan, plastering cartoon pictures all over their vehicles is just another way of paying homage to their two-dimensional true loves.
Itasha means “cringeworthy car”, reflecting the misfit image the vehicles had when they first started appearing on roads around 20 years ago.
But perceptions have begun to change, with anime and other hobby subcultures gaining a new mainstream acceptance in Japan.
It’s all the same for Takahata, a 31-year-old car shop employee, for whom looking cool is not the point.
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