Fashion SWAT: Japanese Goths (Part 2)

On Friday Something Awful's resident crabby reviewer Dr. David Thorpe teamed up with me to bring you the first part of our new Fashion SWAT article. The response for this piece has been overwhelming and am I pleased to bring you part two. After talking with Lowtax I am also pleased to announce that Fashion SWAT will be headed the way of a feature column. Keep your eyes peeled for it showing up on the sidebar in the future! In the meantime, enjoy part 2 of our Japanese Goths article.

UPDATE: Chunderfaces, stop emailing us that one of the models we called a girl was actually a guy. SURPRISE OF THE CENTURY!

Zack: This outfit is sending me some mixed messages. Did Brandon Lee start working at a Renaissance festival in Michigan or did the Crow do some Shakespeare in the Park? I like that complicated wire shit all over her leggings though. It really jumps out at you and says "I don't mind taking three hours to dress myself."

Dr. Thorpe: Well, to be fair, she saves a lot of time in her grooming ritual by cutting her hair with gardening shears.

Zack: Alas, don't jump Yorrick!

Dr. Thorpe: Honestly, that model must be scared out of her wits, up there on a ledge in high heels. Look how she's leaning on that pillar. She's probably thinking "normally, I wouldn't be caught dead in this outfit, but I think I'm about to be."

Zack: She looks pretty pissed off about it. There are probably frat guys gathered around the base of whatever she's standing on top of shouting insults and bonging beer. SHOW US YOUR TITS VAMPIRELLA!

Dr. Thorpe: Can you blame them? I'd like to think we'd be right there with them. By the way, there's a difference between asymmetrical dresses and dresses that are just two different dresses sewn together.

Zack: Or fourteen different dresses sewed together.

Zack: It's like someone put mime makeup on one of the backup dancers in a Sheena Easton video. It's either that or glamour shots for the playbill of a touring production of Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Cats". I love the part where the cats come out into the audience to post in their Live Journal about how soulless and dark the world is.

Dr. Thorpe: She looks like she's trying to look like Siouxsie Sioux but she ends up looking like the spookiest female impersonator in Las Vegas. This seems to be a shot of her trying to figure out what that smell is and then discovering that it's coming from her glove.

Zack: I'm sure the smell is some sinister anachronism like a goblin winning a cakewalk on top of the Sears Tower. I wonder if the shurikens she has concealed in her snazzy kung fu belt are stamped with little crucifixes.

Dr. Thorpe: I don't find her very menacing, because I know that she only uses the shurikens to kill chickens to put on her head.

Zack: Yeah, but you know she'd just lie and insist that it was a raven not a chicken. You'd say "you mean a crow?" and she'd say "no, I mean a raven" and then she would brood the ever-living shit out of you.

Dr. Thorpe: Don't put words into my mouth. Oh wow, hold the phone; I just realized there's hair going down her back. Do I perchance spy a mullet?

Zack: Maybe the hair is coming FROM her back. Like a goth version of the Sasquatch.

Dr. Thorpe: GATHSQUATCH

Dr. Thorpe: Oh god, I HATE Bjork.

Zack: I don't know what's going on here but I want out. Right now. Why is that horrible little rabbit child thing so much smaller than the horrible maiden thing?

Dr. Thorpe: It's her evil homunculus. See, she has it on a little leash.

Zack: This is seriously freaking me out man. I don't know if I can stand it.

Dr. Thorpe: The look on her face just seems to be saying, "get him, homunculus! Tear his scrotum open with your tiny teeth and feast on the nourishment within!"

Zack: I think the girl in the background standing up is a zombie. Look at her posture. My theory now is that the maiden is accompanied by her homunculus and uses her terrible powers to raise an army of zombie apples from the earth.

Dr. Thorpe: This whole goth thing is meant to freak us out, but usually it winds up just making us laugh, right? Well, not this picture. This picture scares the shit out of me. So I guess I'm going to have to say that it's a resounding success.

Zack: Halloween circa one year before puberty.

Dr. Thorpe: Why is her dress up so high? Is she fat? That's a fat-dress.

Zack: Look at her elbow. What happened there? Was she fisting a bird and just broke on through to the other side?

Dr. Thorpe: Yeah, I think so. Check out those deadly fingernails. Those could get through a bird, no problem. Do you know if instead of tanning booths the Japanese have paleing caves?

Zack: The Japanese inhabit a lightless subterranean grotto near the sea. The lack of Vitamin E has rendered boys and girls indistinguishable and blond wigs grow on the stalactites instead of lichens. They harvest them as trade goods.

Dr. Thorpe: They trade them for fake wings of every shape and color. Being cave-dwellers, they yearn for flight.

Zack: I wonder what would happen to these people at a black metal concert. Like if some of them took to the skies and landed in Norway would a bunch of Vikings with KISS paint on just cleave them in two with axes?

Dr. Thorpe: When one is speaking of cleaving, the proper phrase is "cleave them in twain."

Dr. Thorpe: FINALLY, some MEN!

Zack: I don't know if I'd go that far.

Dr. Thorpe: Come on, it's Gary Numan and Sonic the Hedgehog!

Zack: So which one is gothic and which one is cyber?

Dr. Thorpe: I'd guess that Sonic is cyber, being a video game character.

Zack: I don't know though, Gary Numan probably thought of himself as "Cyber" at some point in his career.

Dr. Thorpe: Are friends electric? Not your friends, your friends are just retarded.

Zack: Goths drive like this and cybers drive like this.

Dr. Thorpe: Goths borrow their grandma's Pontiac like this and cybers borrow their grandma's Pontiac like this.

Zack: I'm sure they both own webcams and update their blogs from Starbucks.

Dr. Thorpe: August 13th: Beaten up again today. What's wrong with people? Is it me? No, it can't be me.

Zack: Mood: Gloomy. Listening To: Rasputina - Transylvanian Concubine.

Zack: It was a dark and stormy night...perpetually.

Dr. Thorpe: I'm just waiting for that dude to pick up a bell pepper and bite into it to signify the beginning of the Iron Chef competition.

Zack: If my memory serves…this sword was a gift from Galadriel. I didn't know the Japanese were remaking the Lord of the Rings. Sting glows when orcs are nearby!

Dr. Thorpe: Too bad it doesn't glow when dorks are nearby, or these guys would never have to spring for flashlight batteries again.

Zack: I don't even know if they're guys or girls. It's like an episode of Maury where the audience has to guess.

Dr. Thorpe: Luckily, I don't even care anymore.

Zack: This is what the next Matrix movie is going to look like.

Dr. Thorpe: Next Matrix movie? Don't you ever say those words again, not even as a joke. There are some things that you just don't joke about.

Zack: I think they said they wanted to make another one to apologize for making the previous two. Hopefully they'll make a fifth one to apologize for the fourth one.

Dr. Thorpe: Didn't one of the Wachowski brothers become a female? Maybe this is them.

Zack: I think he's still working on it. Becoming a woman can be a very lengthy process. Week One: delivery of one half of my vagina. FedEx tracking on the other half says it's delayed in Holland.

Dr. Thorpe: Couldn't the photographer have picked a shot where the guy wasn'st scratching his nuts?

Zack: Oh, so THAT'S the guy.

Dr. Thorpe: Isn't it? I thought that was supposed to be a guy and the other one was supposed to be a girl.

Zack: There needs to be an envelope we can open to see who the real guy is like in Clue.

Zack: This is what happens when a clown gets tangled in a tuna net.

Dr. Thorpe: No, this is what happens when a fashion designer says "fuck it, I don't care anymore."

Zack: I like the sewing machine in the foreground. I think it's to make sure you know that it's a costume and not something a giant cat coughed up on the floor. MEGAMITTENS HAS BEEN EATING YARN AGAIN!

Dr. Thorpe: I have to assume it's some sort of cry for help. "Just stick some bits of a bagpipe in her hair and paint her gold, I don't care." And he expected the photographer and the model to say "Aww, what's wrong?"

Zack: "Everything you want to keep, put in this box. Everything you want to get rid of, throw on her head."

Dr. Thorpe: She looks like one of the aliens from Battlefield Earth all tarted up to go to the space-prom.

Zack: Holy Shit!

Dr. Thorpe: What is it? Did the horror just fully sink in?

Zack: Is that a marshmallow on a stick in her hair? I think her head absorbed a boy scout troop cooking smores by the camp fire. She's like a hirsute Akira.

Dr. Thorpe: I think I see some tinker toys and maybe a stuffed animal. Whatever it is, it eats children for sure.

Zack: Oh my goodness! It's Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez's ghost!

Dr. Thorpe: I thought it looked more like a one-eyed Wynona Judd. That's definitely country and western hair.

Zack: I think she's wearing at least four wigs. Maybe she's a pirate who sails the seas looking for wigs.

Dr. Thorpe: Most of them discarded by various singers after the filming of the Lady Marmalade video.

Zack: I bet you a hundred dollars that's a dude in the background. That is a total man-face.

Dr. Thorpe: There's no way I'll take that bet. Like I said, any and all Japanese females are suspect.

Zack: Come to think of it, they might both be men.

Dr. Thorpe: Ever known any J-Pop fans? They constantly show you pictures of what appear to be women, and then they delight in saying "BUT GUESS WHAT! THAT'S A MAN! ISN'T THAT AWESOME!?" So basically, you become conditioned.

Zack: It's a secret Japanese technique to prevent you from ever becoming sexually aroused at the sight of a Japanese woman. Even when they're naked you have to be suspicious because they have learned terrible tricks with gaffer's tape and skin-colored Band-Aids.

Dr. Thorpe: The picture says "Monotone Party." Isn't that the name of the annual Asperger's Syndrome Convention?

Zack: Maybe they're a political movement. This is their way of raising awareness about issues. Party platform: umbrellas rock!

Dr. Thorpe: Well, I'd vote for them. For the same reasons I voted for Jesse Camp in that MTV "Who Wants to Be a VJ" contest. Plus, I have to give the eye patch girl props for being the only happy person we've seen so far.

Zack: I don't know. I'm a little apprehensive about why she's happy.

Dr. Thorpe: Her face sort of spells "bodily satisfaction" happy, like she just took a big crap or something.

Zack: What is a promo glossy for a Japanese country and western duo doing mixed in with all these goths? I bet they cover a lot of Hank Wirriams Junior.

Dr. Thorpe: I think their name should be "Betty and the Chef."

Zack: You know they're going to do an encore when the gem on the Chef's chest blinks. That's when you use your Star Punch.

Dr. Thorpe: I think they'd do pretty well in the campy nightclub circuit, honestly.

Zack: A homeless guy with a tambourine would do well in the campy nightclub circuit.

Dr. Thorpe: Yeah, but these guys have one thing he doesn't have: class. But then again, the homeless guy has one thing they don't have: a tambourine.

Zack: I'm seriously not getting why they showed up in a goth fashion magazine.

Dr. Thorpe: Maybe it's just an ad in the back that somebody scanned mistakenly. It probably says "Don't miss Betty and the Chef, appearing Monday through Friday nights at the Konichiwa Club in beautiful downtown Miami!"

Zack: I think there's something more sinister going on. Something we missed. Look at how the one on the left, Betty I guess, is praying and looks like she's saying something.

Dr. Thorpe: Maybe it's the last page of the magazine, and she is saying "Please, these photographs were all in fun, but do not let our grim visions become a reality."

Zack: Maybe they are mindless thralls to the powerful spirit trapped inside the Chef's gemstone. "GO OUT AND PLAY WHISKEY BENT AND HELL BOUND AGAIN PITIFUL MORTALS"

Dr. Thorpe: I'm pretty sure that The Chef is a man. But that probably goes without saying.

Zack: I was going to make a joke about starting to pop a boner, but I can't even type that with a straight face.

Dr. Thorpe: Luckily, you don't type with your face.

Zack: Maybe YOU don't.

That's all for this installment of Fashion SWAT. Thanks to all of the readers who emailed me and especially those of you who tried to save us from embarrassment by pointing out that some of the women were actually men. You guys don't listen to J-Pop by any chance, do you?

If you have suggestions on what fashion trends we should pepper spray and beat with batons then feel free to drop me an email.

Rock Stars, Shmock Stars

Last week's "Worst Rock Stars Ever" column created a massive response from readers eager to share their own opinions on who sucks the most. Some of the letters were so good, in fact, that Dr. David Thorpe is devoting this week's column to showing you just how funny Something Awful's readers can be:

"I saw that picture of Steve Tyler in your article and it vaguely reminded me of something. After eating some past-freshness-date chili-cheese Bugles I remembered what it was. Something from Star Trek. When I went looking for the Trek image I didn't expect it to be as horribly similar as it turned out to be. Enjoy!"

If you were disappointed that Dr. Thorpe didn't make fun of Sting, Gene Simmons, or the replacement guitarist for A Flock of Seagulls last time, now's your chance to see some justice. Who knows, maybe your own letter was printed! Probably not, though.

– Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons (@sexyfacts4u)