Within every fundoshi is the power to make the world a better place.
Hosts, hostesses, groups of drunk salarymen, people dressed up for a fun night of club hopping, couples on their way to love hotels; these are the kinds of people you might expect to see on a typical visit to Japan’s largest entertainment and red-light district, Kabukicho. However, if you’re lucky, you may also come across a group of almost naked men, wearing nothing but a type of traditional Japanese underwear called a fundoshi.
These retro underwear enthusiasts aren’t just random weirdos though. They’re members of Fundoshibu (literally: Fundoshi Club), an organization founded by Tokyo University graduate Yuzo Hoshino, as a way of “changing the world through fundoshi” and their latest attempt to do this involves fundoshi-clad men taking to the streets of Kabukicho in order to pick up trash.
Recently, Fundoshibu released a video showing their members cleaning up the streets of Tokyo’s most famous night life district and talking about why they chose to take on this peculiar project. In the video, which does have English subtitles, the members explain that they are doing this in order to raise interest in fundoshi, while at the same time both giving back to society and breaking down “the common understanding that you have to dress a certain way to do certain things.” Who knew the fundoshi could be such a powerful tool? (Let’s just hope they don’t do this in the winter…)
Check out fundoshi revolutionaries in the video below.
If you’d like to learn more about Fundoshibu and the many things they do, make sure to check out the article below.
Source: Kabushikigaisha Fundoshibu
Image ふんどし部紹介 -Fundoshibu Cleaning the streets- (Kabushikigaisha Fundoshibu)
