Skip to main content
.

FROM: TRACE issue no. 35
http://www.trace212.com


SUNDAY: to some, a day for Jesus or prayer. To others a different god, or even a belief in fundamental rites of passage, of paying tribute to existence—ceremony if you will.

In Tokyo there are no churches, only shrines, idols, pop stars, cartoons, and the dreams of obsessed teenage girls believing in defying the social norm of ritual and honor by becoming the rock star images that they see while playing the park. The faith is laid on the forward sidewalk edge of super Tokyo’s capital of fashion: Harajuku.

Teenage girls group like a school of fish in a feeding frenzy, the common ground being the arena of Yoyogi Park, an exhibitionist whirlpool and paparazzi showdown. Once inside the beepbopped, heart-throbbed, Hello Kitty freight train phenomenon circle, you are beside yourself. These models are legends in their own lunchbox, as if eclipsing the real world amidst their temple-shrine, involved in the ritual and faith in being here every Sunday rain or shine.

They have been there longer than most can remember. When one girls candle is burnt out of childhood headbangin’ at the hangout, a new star is born and that torch is passed to the next girl ready to burn bright.

A photographers snapshot is candle fuel, burning bright, inside the ego of a girls eye. For these girls, the beauty of chuggin’ along the river of life is being as important as being different – being you. In a land built on conformity, a girl graduates into a fiasco outfit in full parade effect, formally know as a Japanese school girl, business card and all.

In the end, these teenage girls maintain a balanced social order: youth who believe in living out fairytales.

May the gods bless them.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Couple of weeks ago, Ms. Diyco featured another campaign made by the creatives here at Harrison Communications. Here's her review about the Neozep "Neozerye" TV campaign: Romancing the mighty colds cure ADS AND ENDS, Nanette A Franco-Diyco BUSINESS WORLD Vol. XX, No. 139, Friday-Saturday, February 9-10, 2007 http://www.bworldonline.com/Weekender020907/main.php?id=marketing_diyco The four television commercials that serialize the life of pretty housemaid Luwalhati, culminating in a storybook wedding to her once-upon-a-time señorito from the imposing mansion belong to an ad campaign awards class all its own. There have been other spoofs of soap operas selling other brand categories in the past. But for several reasons put together, the Neozep series of commercials that began with honest-to-goodness ad teasers that looked and sounded like teasers for true-blue soap operas proved ultra entertaining and more importantly, "reinforced Neozep’s leadership and further s...

The Mini Manifesto

LET'S BURN THE MAPS. Let's get lost. Let's turn right when we should turn left. Let's read fewer car ads and more travel ads. Let's not be back in ten minutes. Let's hold out until the next rest stop. Let's eat when hungry. Let's drink when thirsty. Let's break routines, but not make a routine of it. LET'S MOTOR.™ This is the copy for the MINI “Let’s Motor” campaign. The creatives who created this campaign said they weren’t just writing copy on how great it would be to own a Mini, they were writing a manifesto, a way of life for people who drive a Mini. I just love how the copy has rhythm, how it just flows and rolls off the tongue, how it just wants you to go out and drive and just keep driving. Makes me also wish I could write copy like that. More wonderful copy ads can be found at: http://www.libraryofmotoring.info/miniprintads.html

the sons and daughters of Kanlaon

Last Friday, we attended the 40th Anniversary of KBS, the Kanlaon Broadcasting System, where my mom and dad once worked. I was still a baby when my dad worked there. I barely remember the people there. One of the first people to greet me was Lando, my dad's old driver. Him, I remember. As the story goes, when I was a baby, I could not pronounce his name and just started calling him "Agoong". Hence, he got that nickname and that's what everyone called him. I remember how we used to play chess while waiting for dad to finish work and how I always forced him to make me win. (Makes me wish I forced him to teach me how to play chess better and learn how to not win things so easily.) As expected, as my mom re-introduced me to her old office mates, they all looked surprised and delighted to see me. They would then immediately extend their hand, palm down, and show me how small I was when I first met them. Some would pretend to carry me and tell them they were the ones who ca...