Back in 2006 the late actress Brittany Murphy shot the movie Ramen Girl (released in 2008) in which she plays the Gaijin coming to Tokyo and works her ass off in a small ramenshop to become the best ramen master of Japan!
In one of the scenes of this movie she also went to Yoyogi Park to dance with the Takenokozoku dancers:
It became her second last movie: as we all know she passed away on 20th of december 2009 at the young age of 32.
by banpei with no comments yetWhat would a bosozoku do on his sunday afternoon? Drive around on his bike or in his zokusha? Don’t think so: he would rather dance in Yoyogi Park next to Harajuku station:
According to the poster of the video the guy in slowmotion @1:35 has a pompadour of 50 cm in size! Amazing!
Officially this is called Takenokozoku, which roughly translates into bamboo shoot kids. This cult started out in the mid 70s and took on till the mid 80s. What happened is that gangs of school dropouts just start dancing in public places (parks, sidewalks, streets) on music played with portable music playes (what we would call ghettoblasters). Back then it was a big rebellion against the old generations and considered as immoral to do!
Most of these guys and girls were bosozoku and they still do meet up regularly in this park on Sundays to do their act. So if you ever visit Tokyo you definitely need to go to Harajuku and go have a look in Yoyogi Park!
by banpei with no comments yet