ta-puri tarako

Yeah, I know. I’m way behind the curve on this one. But I just couldn’t get my own pic of this phenomenon before now. For a while everywhere I looked I’d see these really creepy-looking Kewpie dolls hanging off things: in stores, people’s bags, etc. Just had no idea where they were coming from or what it was about.

Then I finally found out that it was Kewpie’s Tarako spaghetti sauce (Kewpie — company logo of a cupid — btw, is a famous mayo manufacturer who came up with the soft squeezy mayo bottle all those years ago. Now they make various products). But since I won’t go near tarako (cod roe) unless the end of the earth is nigh and my survival depended on it, I didn’t really go to lengths to followup. My booboo, or should I say lucky escape.

Now it’s a national phenomena. Kewpie Tarako (the cupid dressed in a cod-roe sack-shaped outfit) and the Tarako girls who sing the product’s theme tune have a huge fan base … or cult following. I watched the latest TV ad (www.kewpie.co.jp/know/) and it really is eerily and hypnotically fascinating. By the time it was over I found myself singing the theme tune and searching for the rest of the ads and any other visuals connected to it. I was considering buying the CD of the Tarako song, and became obsessed with finding a weeny Kewpie Tarako of my own.

Go to YouTube and type in “tarako” for more swaying cod-roe sack-shaped cupids or “tarako-tarako-tarako kigurumi” to find the singing Tarako girls with cod roe sacks on their heads (if it hasn’t already been blitzed by YouTube because the copyright thing…). You won’t regret it.

Actually, you probably will, but you just won’t be able to help yourself.

The image I did finally get is the Kewpie Tarako invasion of a UFO-catcher in an amusement arcade. I tried, and I tried to win one. But I am crap at UFO catcher and ended up with my face pressed up against the glass singing “tarako, tarako, tarako, ta-puri tarako…” until someone dragged me away for rehab.

Kewpie have plenty of weird commercials if you are interested. Check: www.kewpie.co.jp