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NEWS: "Itasha" Tear Up The Track in Chiba




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Ktimene's Lover



Joined: 23 Apr 2005
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Location: Glendale, AZ (Proudly living in the desert)
PostPosted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 10:31 pm Reply with quote
This is so damn cool.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 08 Dec 2003
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Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC
PostPosted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 10:34 pm Reply with quote
I've heard another theory that the term itasha came from the extra registration fee an owner has to pay due to the extensive painting on the car, which is considered as "heavy modification" by Japanese DMV. The pricey fee really "hurts," hence the name.
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bjstaab



Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 2
Location: wyoming
PostPosted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 11:03 pm Reply with quote
I heard a third explanation from a Japanese envoy of some sort. He said it was ita in the painful sence. But he said it was painful "kind of like picking at a scab". Painful, but somehow pleasurable at the same time. And that it refered to being open about your otaku-dom in the public at large. He also showed examples of ita-jitensha, or bicycles with anime characters painted on them.

This was at an NDK panel last month.

So who knows?
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W-General



Joined: 17 Jun 2004
Posts: 280
Location: Ithaca, NY, USA / Taichung, Taiwan
PostPosted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 11:34 pm Reply with quote
Oh man, it's like the Itasha phenomenon on Forza Motorsports 2, except this is in real life!

That is totally awesome. I swear that if I ever do get loaded enough, one of my cars will be an itasha.
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Desslar



Joined: 14 Apr 2004
Posts: 70
Location: Washington, DC
PostPosted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 11:36 pm Reply with quote
How disappointing. I was expecting cars designed after anime favorites like the Mach 5.
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musashi1600



Joined: 06 Oct 2006
Posts: 198
Location: Hawaii
PostPosted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 11:50 pm Reply with quote
You have no idea how badly I wish I had the graphic skills to turn my car into a haibane-mobile right now. >_>;;
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d.yaro



Joined: 08 Feb 2006
Posts: 528
PostPosted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 11:57 pm Reply with quote
The Konata helmet was just plain odd... But I like it. The "Mahou Shojo Ririka Nanoha A's" car... To each their one I guess. I like it but man, wouldn't want to be the guy who did the paint job.
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LuckySleven



Joined: 13 Mar 2007
Posts: 426
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 12:24 am Reply with quote
Heh...I wonder how many accidents were caused where people turned their attention off the road to the designs. My favorite has got to be the Konata helmet.
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Jariten
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Joined: 08 Oct 2005
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 1:30 am Reply with quote
bjstaab wrote:
I heard a third explanation from a Japanese envoy of some sort. He said it was ita in the painful sence. But he said it was painful "kind of like picking at a scab".


It's possible. The explanation in the article is the one from the original article on Mantan.
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musashi1600



Joined: 06 Oct 2006
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Location: Hawaii
PostPosted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:44 am Reply with quote
d.yaro wrote:
The Konata helmet was just plain odd... But I like it. The "Mahou Shojo Ririka Nanoha A's" car... To each their one I guess. I like it but man, wouldn't want to be the guy who did the paint job.


The Nanoha car has been out there a while. On top of the paint job, the guy who owns it went as far as sticking a monitor in the front passenger seat.
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Case



Joined: 09 Apr 2002
Posts: 1016
PostPosted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 4:27 pm Reply with quote
musashi1600 wrote:
The Nanoha car has been out there a while. On top of the paint job, the guy who owns it went as far as sticking a monitor in the front passenger seat.


I love the logos under the mirror:
LM Lyrical Magical
Bardiche (ala Bridgestone!)
Racing||| |||Heart
BeLka
Klarwind

Although you'd have to be a pretty big fan of Fate to be OK with the 19 inch monitor instead of an airbag in the event of an accident.
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musashi1600



Joined: 06 Oct 2006
Posts: 198
Location: Hawaii
PostPosted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 5:06 pm Reply with quote
Case wrote:
Although you'd have to be a pretty big fan of Fate to be OK with the 19 inch monitor instead of an airbag in the event of an accident.


It's a Japanese 1992-1995 Honda Civic. Do those have airbags to begin with?
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tenkado-shujin



Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Posts: 152
PostPosted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 2:40 am Reply with quote
Anime News Network wrote:
The term "itasha" is a phrase coined by fans to resemble the Japanese colloquial term for "italian car" in which "ita" is short for "italia", combined with the Japanese "sha", which means "vehicle" or "car". The difference between the terms is that the fan-created "itasha" is made with the character "itai" or "to hurt" - in other words, cars that are so cute that it "hurts" to look at them.


痛車 itasha, i.e. ita(i) car, is a pun on イタ車 itasha, i.e. Italian cars, which are often considered to be made in a design-conscious way, like the point about 痛車 is their design.
In that case, 'ita(i)' of 'itasha' is a Japanese slang expression which developed from ordinary 'itai'.
Black marketeers used the argot word 'itai' which meant 'disagreeable', 'undesirable' and so on, and also entertainers in Kansai used the jargon word 'itai' in order to refer to a stupid person. The archaic word 'katawaraitashi' means 'shameful to see' or 'feel mean'. (It is interesting to see the archaism reemerge as the modern slang expression.) Possibly those words influenced the slang expression 'itai'.
And 'itasha' may be also related to 'otasha', which means 'otaku's car' and is phonetically and semantically similar to 'itasha'.
There are some usages of this slang expression 'itai', but, for example, one of them is like this:
When a person self-complacently did a thing, considering it to be allowable, approvable, fine, cool or the like but on the contrary people don't think so and they have a negative opinion of it, the person or the thing he/she did can be described as itai.
In the case of 痛車 itasha, owners of that sort of cars show off their cars and boldly display their otakish taste, but people tend to think that such cars or those car owners' action is unacceptable, absurd, ridiculous, shameful, in bad taste, weird, uncool and so on. Therefore those cars are described as itai and are called itasha.
Though the term 'itasha' ought to have critical, derisive or derogatory meanings if the 'ita(i)' part in 'itasha' is taken seriously, actually also owners of that sort of cars themselves and people who enjoy such cars refer to that kind of cars as itasha self-deprecatingly, jokingly, and / or in a 'Let's enjoy this camp thing' attitude.

Jariten wrote:
The explanation in the article is the one from the original article on Mantan.

Mantan Web wrote:
痛車は、イタリア車の「イタ車」に、見ていて「痛く」なるような車の意を重ねた造語で、バイクは「痛単車」と呼んで愛好家たちが楽しんでいる。


Well, I beg your pardon, but Jariten, assuming that you translated the Mantan Web article and wrote the ANN article based on it, could you show me where the Japanese equivalent of 'so cute that' is in the Mantan Web article ? Or is that a supplementary explanation which you thought of and added to what the writer for Mantan had written ?
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SailorCapricorn



Joined: 10 Mar 2008
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:11 pm Reply with quote
I would love something like that on my car well not the one i have I would want something new and I already know what I would want on my car.

Sailor Moon
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