Anyone who has been to Japan knows it has a multitude of weird toys. Anthropomorphic broad beans, Kapybara-san, that sinister-looking Russian one with the weird ears – you name it, Japan has probably plastered its kawaii face over stationery and moulded it into phone charms, keyrings, and bento boxes. But among the giant cast of cute characters, one's caught my eye. It's a small doll who likes to dress up in all sorts of costumes. Wherever you go, she's there, dressed up as something strange. Now, this is in a country where no toy is content without a range of strange outfits and almost all of them can be found wearing costumes, often of each other (in particular, the Monster Hunter characters and Hello Kitty share a skin-swapping penchant). But this little doll has assembled a particularly extensive wardrobe.
Among her thousands of costumes, she's dressed up as a plane...
... a bowl of ramen (I like the jaunty fishcake hat)...
...an effeminate-looking Mario...
...a member of the wartime Imperial Japanese Navy...
...and any kind of fruit you'd care to name.
I even found her dressed as the Miyajima shrine when I went to Miyajima...
It turns out she is a Kewpie doll. Kewpie dolls were first designed in the early 20th century and derived their name from Cupid, who I guess they kind of look like, albeit a fairly creepy version. The dolls found their way to Japan where they were adopted by a mayonnaise company, who still sell their mayonnaise with the doll on the front:
Which brings us to Kewpie's weirdest outfit of all:
What do you think she's dressed as this time? No, you're wrong. She's a codfish egg. Not content with flogging just mayonnaise, Kewpie is now the global brand ambassador for her company's tarako sauce. Tarako is cod roe, which over here you can get as a topping for just about anything. Even, um, pasta. In fact, Kewpie Co have brought out a whole delicious range of tarako pasta sauces. Here's a sample ad:
It seems to have been Kewpie Co's main marketing strategy over the past twenty or so years to make ads involving hundreds of identical tarako Kewpies advancing steadily towards terrified children. A quick youtube search will bring up loads of videos like the one above. But it's not all tarako armies. Oh no, they've formed an orchestra as well...
And their song proved so catchy that the company hired a couple of girls to sing a human version while wearing tarako-shaped hats. (Warning: this song lasts longer than you can possibly imagine.)
Apparently this song was a hit and the Tarako Girls released an album and a special Christmas version of the song. (I won't test your sanity by embedding the video, but if the song hasn't driven you crazy yet you can watch the Christmas version here.)
Tarako Kewpie became a mega star. You can buy keychains, phone charms, and all manner of other plastic tat shaped just like her. Even MP3 players:
And if you're lucky, you might even bump into her on your way to buy some delicious cod-egg pasta sauce.
posted by Chloe
P.S. Kewpie Co's website is pretty amazing too: http://www.kewpie.co.jp/
