THE WIGGLES: Tentacles hold a special place in Japanese culture. More specifically, tentacles hold a special place in Japanese nerd/anime culture. I say this in my expert capacity as the ex-roommate of two certifiably nerdy Japanese guys with an extensive video collection.
Back in my college days, my two apartment buddies would invite me to video game sessions to relieve stress. Regardless of whose room we ended up in, I'd always spy a nice stash of VHS tapes in the corner, many of which sport an interesting assortment of tentacles wrapped in various, um, interesting positions on the cover. Strangely enough, although I had the privilege of watching countless Gundam and Slayers videos with this delightful, manzai-like duo, I never had the pleasure (or would that be displeasure?) of watching their special tentaclefest collections with them. Like U.S. Air Force Blackbird missions, watching tentacle movies is apparently best done solo.
Some days, I'd be studying in the living room and I'd see one of them knock on the other guy's door.
"This one's a good one," one of them would proudly say in Japanese as he hands one of his tentacle videos to the other.
"I am very much in your debt," the other would mockingly respond in formal Japanese.
They would then retreat back to their rooms, the soft click of their doors officially signaling the end of their strange Japanese underworld deal. I then make a mental note to not shake the tentacles, er, hands of the video recipient within the next 24 hours, all the while taking it upon myself to be in charge of making dinner that evening.
Having since parted ways with my dear Japanese roomies for six years now, I have been out of the loop as far as the Japanese otaku-tacle market for quite some time. Since then, the only visual confirmation I've had of tentacles has been limited to the occasional serving of tako at a sushi restaurant.
A recent run-in with this funny post at video game site Kotaku about tentacle cosplay, however, rekindled my memories of my former Japanese roomies and their hilarious hallway exchanges all those years ago. I wonder what kinds of deals those two are up to now? Regardless, I don't think I'll be shaking their hands anytime soon.
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