T-shirts in Tokyo

T-shirt season has started. T-shirts with slogans. In English. Blazoned across upper bodies, quick snatches of meaning pop up amid the school uniforms, business suits, and discount outfits.

They communicate a kind of anti-fashion, an expressive poke in the potbelly of an urban populace obsessed with appearance, if constrained by sartorial obligations or moderate salary. Anyone with an arbeit income can catch a passing, attentive eye with a sense of humor and a dash of the English language.

These post-modern slaps in the face are a welcome invigoration to the all-too-often sickly and colorless shirts blanketing the bodies and visual space of Tokyo. The very best are potent reminders of powerful ideas and profound sentiments. Others are whimsical soundbites of aggression, lashes of disaffection, clever insight, and that hilarious, studied nonchalance that young Tokyoites affect with such elan.

First though, any T-shirt aficionado has to exclude T-shirts with advertising intentions, even if masterfully parodic. Sadly then, "I only sleep with the best!" advertising sheets, "One slap and you won't go back" for bass guitar strings, and the bizarre "Pizza of Death" are all too commercially clever.

"MICROSHIT" gets closer to the real spirit of shock through words, but even that remains somehow within the economic, a bit of spam slipped out of the Net.

Likewise, slogans too cute or too sexual have to be put into the "almost" category. "Cherry" on a young mini-skirted girl, "Cute-hipped baby" on a young mother, "your puppy johnny" on a boy toy, all are too obvious, possibly just birthday presents or impulse purchases. "SEX HORMONES" (my notes indicate the woman seemed to have no shortage) just leaves too little to the imagination. Likewise, a student's "The way to make girls like to eat banana," beneath the suggestively erect shape of a large yellow banana catches the eye, but leaves little lasting effect.

Of course, the long-term resident of Tokyo will feel nostalgia for the old days of grammatically incorrect English on T-shirts. But times have changed, standards have risen, and even such interesting concoctions as "Feel like SHIT-renew" and "Everybody go different way, see same thing," which would have been spectacular in the early bubble economy years, feel clunky these days.

Many slogans are simply too earnest, too reductive or insufficiently sarcastic.

One of the best of this category, "work is for mortals" works at first glance, as does "live an easy life/fall into a deep sleep," but still somehow, chotto, ne. But others, "learn from those who went before you", "you know what you need to survive" and "The devil destroying the world is a stupid human" are predictably didactic. They wear their point on their sleeve, so to speak. "A mind that stretches to a simple idea never returns to its original dimensions" is advice that applies equally well to T-shirt slogans.

Other slogans have great specificity and work only on the right person. "S.O.B." and "old fart" draw too much attention to the wearer's character to succeed with the immediate impact of one quick glance.

Likewise, "I'm very pleased about it" on a platform-heeled, long-limbed, fried-skin, dyed-hair young woman eventually works, but needs a second re-reading after taking in the whole package. "Do you amuse together with us?" was perfect for the prominent breasts it was printed across. Yet, on another, more diminutive wearer it would simply confuse. "Cute that you see is not the whole story -- an innocent girl" requires underlying cuteness and innocence. Or just the opposite maybe.

Together with flouncy bag, long uncombed hair, and ethnic print skirt, "additional parts inside" hits the mark on an earthy young woman. High marks on the unexpected and suggestive scale for this one.

Commands, typically, work well. For unlikelihood of realization, "don't stop" and "spread out" draw full rush hour guffaws. "Do not stack over 12" high", "post no bills," and "Keep back 200 Ft." all steal over-familiar phrases and magically transform them into compelling statements.

"Think WAHOO!" is a pleasant command for transcendence. Just the right pick-me-up during the nihilism of rush hour. And it works-reading it, you DO think "WAHOO!"

"Sentenced to life on planet earth", "my life on the serious planet" and "karma-make the best of a bad situation" all stick with me as perfect statements of metaphysical resignation.

Others stand out as sharp commentary on the limits of human physiology. "Advanced life support" and "laboratory" capture the essence of slogan-ish communiqu�E maximum conceptualization in minimum words, while drawing full attention to the body beneath. "Danger!! Bio-engineering!" reminds us that we all are bio-engineered in some sense.

The potent ethical exchange of "I wish I was you. I wish you were me" leaves you with a sadness and futility about one of our innermost desires, to switch bodies, or switch minds.

"People look so much better alone" is depressingly honest about alienation. "Not sponsored" pretty much sums up the consumer society.

"BLUE ABOVE, BLUE BELOW" hits with the confusion of ambiguity. Color? feeling? sado-masochist bruising? ocean and sky? what blue? we wonder.

And wondering is part of the fun. After all, it's just a semiotic game, tossing a little ball of meaning around. Some slogans even comment on slogans. One T-shirt had all the letters of the alphabet A to Z ranged along the belt line, underneath a stick drawing of hangman figure, and this not completed word, "_K_ER". Let me know, hangman players, if you can figure out what word goes there. I can't.

But, the summa cum clever award goes to the simple, direct, large-lettered slogan on a very aware young woman walking in Kichijoji. "IRONY" is all it said. And all it was.

Keep your eyes open.

-- Michael Pronko