The Painmobile

According to Wikipedia:

Itasha (痛車?), literally "painmobile", is a Japanese term for an otaku fad of individuals decorating the bodies of their cars with fictional characters of anime, manga, or video games (especially bishōjo game or eroge). These characters are predominately "cute" female. The decorations usually involve paint schemes and stickers.

They are called this because it is painful to be seen driving them.

I am in two minds about Itasha. When done well, they can look pretty damn spectacular. They are unique and its obvious their owners are passionate about them… BUT. Their owners are all pedophiles. For some reason the characters that make it onto cars are always lolis. Now I am all for unique and individual rides, but if EVERYONE likes the same sort of fake girl its just another form of conforming. The designs that were once unique and inspirational have become the norm and are just copypastas of all other itasha.

It is something that you see too often in Japan. A spark of creativity gets driven into popularity and becomes its own dead clone. It is a problem that is plaguing almost every aspect of Japanese arts design today. Especially the gaming and music industries. There is 1 good idea that everyone latches on to and milks till it cannot be milked anymore. then it is cloned/sequeled and milked dry again.
Why cant itasha have sexy adult characters on them? why not giant robots? why not Kamina preaching the truth about what it is to be a man?  Because any step outside the esteblished norm, that is not drastically huge, is simply ignored and shunned. To really break out you need to go the extra mile and create something mindblowing, which will then be latched onto and milked dry.
Its the reason why American games, Korean pop and European fashion is getting (even) more and more popular here. Japan has lost it’s creativity. Add that to the already depressing atmosphere of economic downturn and political impotence and it all points to one thing. Japan is in real danger of losing it’s spirit. it’s soul. That flame that made it such an attractive force when I was younger is burning itself out.
DO NOT WANT!