Now Japanese fashion tends to appreciate the English language and logos of Western companies for their aesthetic qualities more than their actual meanings. The poor grammar and spelling that abounds in Japanese advertising is well documented and commonly known as 'Engrish.'
So, back to the story, one of the women helping the kids was sporting an item that I thought rather inappropriate given her duty. Her black nylon jacket featured a large silver Playboy bunny on the back. The image of this woman embracing a small group of children and escorting them across the intersection was amusing to say the least.
I am reminded of another observation. My junior high school students are very much into having flashy pencil cases and like to display their tastes in music, sports brands, etc. Some students (or perhaps their parents) are attracted simply by the design or the colors so I've seen some pretty strange pencil cases out there. The most surprising are the pencil cases that feature reggae themes and have 'Rasta' or 'Cannabis' and several marijuana leaves emblazoned on them. Japan is a zero tolerance society when it comes to drugs, people (at least around here) are embarrassed about talking about them, and in fact I rarely if ever here anyone joke about them. The last two are probably because the 18-25 years old demographic is nonexistent in my neck of the woods.
I refuse to believe that the parents are unaware of their child's pencil case or what theme of it is. It seems perhaps to be a safe way to look cool and feel rebellious at a young age in spite of the fact that marijuana is almost totally inaccessible and the practice of smoking it is so heavily frowned upon here that probably only 1% of these students will ever try it.
Song of the moment:
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