Last winter, I got to go visit Thailand on my honeymoon. I was blown away by a lot of aspects of Thai culture, but chief among them was their penchant for covering their buses in airbrushed murals of random cartoon characters in extreme contexts. I should have known that the Japanese have taken the idea to ridiculous new heights. With the hype for this summer's TRANSFORMERS movie building up, you could be excused for thinking that the above image is Optimus Prime doing his pilates.
Instead, the above image is of a Japanese custom van. American knuckleheads may get lots of play by throwing a bed in the back of a van and airbrushing some unicorns on the side, but the Japanese roll up their sleeves and truly give their kustom vans the love they deserve. If Japan is known for its minimalist and wabi-sabi design, the repressed urge to overdesign bubbles to the surface in interesting ways. Japanese vans sport oversized appendages, lightshows, booming sound systems, ridiculously grand interiors, AND the aforementioned airbrushed paint jobs. Check out the "Korova Milk Bar" theme in the van interior pictured above.
American urges to customize commonly manifest themselves in hyper-masculine displays of gigantic engines, scoops and mufflers. There is nothing masculine about a Japanese minivan, and the customized versions don't really attempt to inject testosterone. Tiny wheels, pink neon and loads of other flamboyant features cry out for attention, yet are entirely comfortable with their sexuality--Hello Kitty seems to be a recurring motif. If you're ready to start exploring the world of Japanese custom vans, your pals at Pink Tentacle have put together an exhaustive guide to the phenomenon, complete with plenty of links and photos. I'm getting to that phase of life when my friends are starting families and buying minivans. Now I can't wait to show them that buying a minivan doesn't mean you've succumbed.
