Who knew alpacas could jump-rope?
Something I enjoy doing when I have the time is looking around YouTube for forgotten but interesting Japanese-language content. Most of the time, I don’t find much, but every once in a while I strike gold. A while ago I stimbled across a video that would fall under the latter category and eventually led to the article you’re rading now.
Uploaded to YouTube in July of 2011, the Japanese video below features humans dressed in full body alpaca costumes engaging in a bit of jump-rope before things take an even more bizarre turn. Warning: If you consider a totally non-explicit scene featuring people dressed up in alpaca costumes engaging in a sexual act to be NSFW, then you may want to save this video for when you’re alone.
Not surprisingly the video above left me curious as to who would make something so strange. So I began investigating. After a little bit of digging I discovered that this video was an episode of a series of shorts called Nandacoole (ナンダコーレ). These shorts aired during commercial breaks on the MTV-inspired Japanese subscription channel Space Shower TV from 2011 to 2012.
In case you’re wondering, the name Nandacole is a play on the Japanese phrase “Nan da kore,” which rougly translates to “What is this?” Judging by the name of the shorts they produced and an old press release I found, it definitely seems like the point of Nandacole was to leave viewers scratching their heads.
Although Nandacole is long gone, the series live on through their YouTube channel. Unfortunately, most of the content on the channel fails to live up to the the alpaca video. Further, many of the videos can’t be fully enjoyed unless you understand Japanese. But here’s a small selection of some that stood out ot me. These videos are totally pointless. But if you really need ot kill time, then they may be worth a look.
First up, we have a video of a guy playing the theremin while doing tai chi.
Next we have a video of hands covered in rubber gloves doing mundane things.
And if you’re into watching scantily clad Japanese women dance to relatively obscure styles of electronic dance music from around the world alongside a guy in full body tights, then you’re in luck, because Nandacole has a mini-series for you. The video below is the first entry in this series and shows the host, a guy going by the name Nikibi (nikibi means “pimple” in Japanese) and a Japanese girl in a swimsuit dancing to Shangaan Electro, a style of dance music that originated in South Africa. There are slow motion close ups of the woman’s chest, so this video is definitely on the NSFW side.
In the second entry of this dance series, Nikibi and company try dancing to Skweee, a style of electronic music from Swedena and Finland. If you’ve ever wanted to see a Japanese woman in a swimsuit dance like a robot, then this is the video for you.
In this one Nikibi and company dance to a style of electronic music known as Ghettotech.
If that’s still not enough pointless nonsense for you, then go ahead and rummage around the remains of the Nandacole YouTube channel.
Image: 【ナンダコーレ】アルパカ D：及川佑介 大久保忠彦 ニシム_ライダー (Nandacole YouTube Channel)
