Salmon Sheets

It starts out with just a strange commercial for fish egg based pasta sauce. It starts to catch on. Then there's a video. It catches on more. Japan becomes obsessed. It hits the streets over and over and over. People sing it badly. Whistle it. Buy it. Keychains. Gifts. Tiny ones. All sorts of Halloween costumes and birthday presents. Christmas decorations and CDs. Punching bags. They're at the dentist. The mall. Sports mascots start doing it. It goes live. There's a Christmas version. A music box, MP3 player. People imitate it they perform it. They name their pets Tarako. Pets eat them. It's in crane arcade machines, a flash video game spoof. Bloggers blog it. Myspace girls take the name. It spreads to the BBC. People are desperately infected with it they see it everywhere, but security is picking up nothing. Forget Shinjuku, it's gone. They're here and OMG here, too. They're multiplying! Creeping in the night, in the day. Hanging around. Dressing up. Listening to iPods. Hiding. Mutating!


They translate the evil words:

onaka ga naru to yattekuru [when your stomach growls, it (tarako) comes]
nakama wo tsurete yattekuru [it comes bringing its friends]
tarako kabutte kaodashite [It wears the tarako hood and sticks its face out]
suiccyo suiccyo dekakemasu [suiccyo steps out for the day]

Here's another translation.

And another from Usenet:

When my stomach growls they come
With their friends they come.
Codfish roe popping up their heads.
They come with a suicho, suicho sound
Suddenly they're outside the window, suddenly they're inside the house

When I boil pasta, they come
All lined up nicely neatly, they come
With their constantly happily grinning faces
chakapoko, chakaraka charming
Suddenly they're above your shoulder, suddenly they're in your dish.

Year in and year out, they come.
With red dread they come.
punyo-punyo, kunyo-kunyo tarakorinko (sounds of cooking)
tsubu-tsubu, puchi-puchi tarakotinko (sounds of chewing)
Suddenly they're in your mouth, suddenly they're in your dreams.

Just... don't... buy the CD! Thankfully, the Amazon.com Sales Rank is still only #34,518, until you realize that it sells more than a Beatles CD! The higher priced version is #430,169. It's the first press.

What would Jesus blog? Tarako!

It's all "kimo-kawaii" The words mean "disgusting-cute". The Japanese are probably better than anyone at being really strange in totally unpredictable ways.