Halloween Meltdown ’13: “Halloween Party,” by Halloween Junky Orchestra

I drifted away from the Halloween stuff for a bit there, but I’m getting back to it now, and I think this makes up for the gap in spades. This gets its own post because, just… because… because it is incredible. I don’t even… What? What should I say to this? What can I say?

I generally like Japanese pop culture, though I admit that I really don’t understand it. I’m not an otaku (a serious, committed, some would say obsessive fan of anime and manga) by any stretch; but there’s something appealing in the unabashed, balls-out ridiculousness of so much of it.

This video is a perfect example of that attitude. I know there are cynical corporate interests at work here, stuffing a bunch of J-pop artists together in a nonsensical video production the sole purpose of which is the lining of said corporate interests’ pockets, and I don’t care. Somehow they’ve recaptured the feeling Halloween used to give me before I was a jaded and furious academic.

You’ve got an  electrocuted guy, a vampire, a mummy with crazy claws, a sort-of Medusa thing, a bizarre multiplying cat woman, a Red Riding Hood lady with a wolf coming out of her– we’ll say stomach. There are cool costumes and awesome set designs the likes of which miss Eva Halloween might fancy, all of it drawing on classic monster movies and Halloween traditions; there’s a catchy song with a delightfully stupid chorus (“La la la la la la la la, Halloween party!/ La la la la la la la la, let’s trick or treat!”); and it’s all in that grinning, androgynous, screw-authority-but-not-really-because-they-write-my-checks tone that only J-rockers can manage. What more could you possibly want from a Halloween celebration?

I would absolutely go to this party, even though what little Japanese I know consists primarily of words that I can’t say in company without blushing and giggling. I get the feeling that these guys would approve, anyway.