itasha (Page 2)

New stylish rental car turns heads, lets you zip around Japan in Asian-style sophistication

The perfect companion for your next trip to Japan.

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The Mr. Sato Car takes part in the trendy “Itasha de Starbucks” movement

We show solidarity with the itasha community by hanging out in a Starbucks parking lot with the Mr. Sato Car.

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Mr. Sato gets surprised with the Mr. Sato Car for his birthday

Usually people would be happy to get a car for their birthday, but in this case we were giving Mr. Sato even odds that he might punch us.

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Beep beep! Mr. Sato Car coming through! 【Pics】

You might see RocketNews24’s itasha, the Mr. Sato Car, driving through your neighborhood. Just follow the sounds of people retching!

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Anime taxi cab enters service on streets of Tokyo, just in time for Japan’s biggest manga event

There’s no more appropriate way to get from your hotel to Comiket than this.

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Here’s the easy, clever way to make your anime itasha car characters actually animated 【Video】

If you’ve already got people looking at your ride, you may as well say hi, and this otaku driver has an inventive way to do just that.

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Awkward, hand-painted “itasha” car lives up to its name, but the internet loves it

Because nothing makes an itasha more painful to behold than painting it yourself…

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Japanese gamer gets attention online with gorgeous NES and SNES decals for Forza Motorsport 6

Yo, dawg! I heard you like game systems, so we put game systems in your game system!

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Love anime and driving? Carmaker Subaru now selling official itasha

Different people have different concepts of Japanese automaker Subaru. For motorsports enthusiasts, the first image that comes to mind is the company’s all-wheel drive cars doing sick jumps on rally gravel stages. Technology buffs, meanwhile, may think of their EyeSight automatic braking safety system.

Japanese animation fans, though, may best know Subaru as the major sponsor of animation studio Gainax’s celestial-themed magical girl anime Wish Upon the Pleiades (known in Japanese as Hokago no Pleiades). And while the series’ TV run is over, that doesn’t mean Subaru’s love for the anime has expired, as the car manufacturer has created, and is selling, an official Wish Upon the Pleiades itasha covered with graphics of the show’s cast.

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Amazing anime-themed flatbed truck is the biggest itasha we’ve ever seen 【Photos】

Many fans choose to wear T-shirts plastered with pictures of their favorite anime or video game characters, therein letting them broadcast their love for the fictional figures to everyone they pass by. Of course, if want to get that message of devotion to even more people, you can always turn your car into an itasha, a vehicle covered with anime stickers.

But even a coupe or sedan only gives you so much sheet metal to work with. That’s why one fan decided he needed an even bigger canvas, and created an itasha like we’ve never seen before: an ita-flatbed truck with some gigantic artwork of his 2-D muses.

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Otaku ita-bag contest winner a painful sight to behold: “Is it even a bag anymore?”

You’ve probably heard of itasha before, otaku-owned cars that are so laden with designs of anime girls that they are almost painful to look at. Whether you’re a fan or a hater, you have to admit the owners of itasha are extremely dedicated to their passion. There’s only problem: you can’t flaunt your passion when you’re not in your car.

Thankfully there’s a solution! Ita-bags—bags that are so weighed down with anime girl pictures and merchandise that they may cause sudden pain in the beholder. And ita-bags are not a niche interest either; they everywhere. There was even an ita-bag contest held in Tokyo recently, and you have to see the winning bag to believe it.

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Angel Beats! itasha auction wraps up for unexpected sum

Japanese marketing ploys of using popular characters to sell everything under the sun isn’t a new concept by any means, but when it comes to itasha, they’re almost always custom works created by otaku for otaku.

However, as part of a game-changing move, publisher VisualArt’s recently announced it would be auctioning off a BMW with an official Angel Beats! wrap job, posing the question of just how high fans of the series would go to purchase a one-of-a-kind, official item from their favorite series. The result, however, probably wasn’t what anyone was expecting.  Read More

Things to pick up at 7-Eleven: Milk, melon bread, Evangelion sports car

Last summer, we thought the heat might have been getting to the executives at 7-Eleven. Sure, offering two-meter (six-foot, seven-inch) tall Evangelion statues as special promotional prizes was a cool idea and all, but did they really expect anyone to pony up the 1,836,000 yen (US$16,000) they were asking for the 25 more giant figures they was selling outright?

Well, not only did all 25 of those Eva statues find homes, they sold out in just two minutes. Emboldened by that success, 7-Eleven has teamed up once again with the hit anime franchise to release the most expensive item the convenience store has ever sold: the Evangelion car.

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Itasha show at World Cosplay Summit lets cars get in on the anime costume fun

This summer, Nagoya once again served as the host city of the World Cosplay Summit. With anime fans arriving from all over, some of them came by car, and you know what that means: itasha, automobiles covered with anime graphics.

Held concurrently with the costuming competition was an itasha exhibition, and we strolled by to check out the rides adorned with their drivers’ favorite 2-D heroines.

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Every weekend is an itasha car show at Akihabara’s UDX parking garage

A friend of mine has a theory about Japanese pop idol performances. In his opinion, the real show isn’t the performers on stage, but the fans in the audience putting their unabashed passion on display as they cover themselves from head to toe in clothing bearing the likeness of their favorite singer.

You can make a similar argument about Tokyo’s anime shopping mecca of Akihabara. Sure, the neighborhood is packed with specialty stores, each of which is in turn packed with the rarest and/or latest merchandise. As interesting as the inventories of professional products may be, though, they’re often upstaged by the creations of fans who flock to the district to show them off, such as the anime-decaled cars of Japan’s itasha capital, the Akihabara UDX parking garage.

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Toyota’s official anime itasha car finds a home

Itasha, the painfully nerdy, anime-decal-plastered cars you can spot running around Japan, generally arrive in that state due to an individual fan’s passion and vision (or obsession). The owner buys a regular car from the dealer, then once he’s slapped enough stickers on his ride, presto! He’s got his very own itasha.

Last year, though, Toyota took the uncommon step of not only creating its own itahsa, but selling it as well. The car has finally found a buyer, who had to go through a number of challenges to sit behind the wheel of his one-of-a-kid sports coupe.

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Higurashi itasha van is a nightmare on wheels

A certain custom-made itasha van, modeled after Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, has been drawing attention in the the Fukui Prefecture. Taking a look at the realistic detail put in to it, there’s no question as to why that is.

The first iteration of the van was built in 2009, and was a black van with the disembodied lower half of a person sticking out of the trunk and numerous character decals. According to Shiren Amakusa, the vans’ owner, he ran into problems when customizing the first van, due to the fact that it was black, which would make the blood less visible against it. The latest version of the van solves that problem, as well as adding a human hand sticking out of the front hood.

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Japan’s “painfully” decorated anime vans【Photo Gallery】

Itasha, literally “painful cars,” are vehicles tricked out with all kinds of crazy body work and paint jobs so that they look like something out of an anime and are supposed to “hurt” just to look at. There’s a vibrant subculture of itasha owners and fans in Japan and they meet up every now and then to show off their wheels and talk shop. Take a look at our photo gallery and see if you don’t get a little depressed over your own car’s lack of fins.

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Amazing! This 3-D itasha looks like a portal into the anime world

A true symbol of status for a whole lot of folks is the kind of car they drive. So what does it say about a person when a larger-than-life magical girl is bursting out the back of their van?! Someone is either absolutely amazing or amazingly disturbed to have so much love for an animated character. Either way, this has got to be one of the most awesome things we’ve ever seen rolling down the Japanese highway!

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So Nerdy it Hurts: Bring on the Pain with this Hatsune Miku BMW

Itasha, or “pain mobile,” is a Japanese word that refers to a car that is so nerdy, it’s painfully embarrassing to even look at.  If a car actually had the ability to cause pain with a single glance, this BMW, with full-body paint and decals featuring otaku-worshipped vocaloid, Hatsune Miku, is enough to put you in the hospital.

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