Journalism of Courage
This is an archive article published on November 1, 2022
Japan’s ‘Mundane Halloween’ is winning the internet with its basic ‘costumes’
The ‘Jimi Halloween’ sub-culture was started in 2014 by Daily Portal Z, a Japanese website that covers interesting trends and odd events in the east Asian island nation.
If Halloween around the world is about elaborate outfits, then in Japan it is the opposite. A popular contest known as ‘Jimi Halloween’ (Jimi in Japanese stands for simple or mundane) sees enthusiastic participation from people who dress in simple outfits or mimic ordinary scenes from everyday life.
What makes these simple outfits interesting are the hyper specifications of the things, moods or scenarios they depict.
As per Spoon & Tamago, a popular blog about life in Japan, the mundane Halloween sub-culture was started in 2014 by Daily Portal Z, a Japanese website that covers interesting trends and odd events in the east Asian island nation. The creators “kind of wanted to participate in the festivities of Halloween, but were too embarrassed to go all out in witch or zombie costumes”, so they created a concept in which people dressed up ‘normally’ but in a way that was still interesting or funny.
Soon the concept became popular and people started posting pictures of super ordinary outfits and representing everyday situations by dressing up as “a person who works from Starbucks” or “a guy waiting for his girlfriend outside the mall’s bathroom”.
This year, Daily Portal Z tweeted some of the best outfits of mundane Halloween, which soon went viral because of the accuracy of the depictions.
自分で切って失敗した前髪をおしゃれと言い張る人 #地味ハロウィン #地味ハロウィン2022 #DPZ #会場より pic.twitter.com/At4Kt9qHxK
— デイリーポータルZ (@dailyportalz) October 30, 2022
偶然コーデ丸かぶりして気まずい人 #地味ハロウィン #地味ハロウィン2022 #DPZ #会場より pic.twitter.com/Y0WRyXTAC8
— デイリーポータルZ (@dailyportalz) October 30, 2022
“Person who wants to use up every bit of toothpaste in the tube”https://t.co/P89dYP3b90
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) October 31, 2022
“Foreign tourist who can’t find any public garbage cans in Japan”https://t.co/7f2D7iKpqt
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) October 31, 2022
洋画の冒頭でリストラされた人 #地味ハロウィン #地味ハロウィン2022 #DPZ #会場より pic.twitter.com/YfenjX5dme
— デイリーポータルZ (@dailyportalz) October 30, 2022
餃子のタレの配合に納得できず、なみなみになってしまう人 #地味ハロウィン #地味ハロウィン2022 #DPZ #会場より pic.twitter.com/AiyIIU0Tq3
— デイリーポータルZ (@dailyportalz) October 30, 2022
「醤油」のコスプレ#地味ハロウィン #地味ハロウィン2022 pic.twitter.com/1KguDEmAzx
— たかや@11月12・13日個展原宿 (@tky888tky) October 30, 2022
“Person whose skeleton is being estimated by machine learning”https://t.co/PnjxqVHoOv
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) October 31, 2022
“Person who accidentally shook their carbonated beverage before opening it”https://t.co/S9CAuCmIqx
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) October 31, 2022
レジの応援に入った店長 #地味ハロウィン #地味ハロウィン2022 #DPZ #会場より pic.twitter.com/m1Mra3xFrY
— デイリーポータルZ (@dailyportalz) October 30, 2022
Among the best-dressed entries was a tired-looking man carrying a cardboard box as he dressed as a “Twitter engineer just fired by Elon Musk”. Other costumes included a lady with awkwardly cut bangs who was portraying a “person who tried to cut their own bangs, failed, and now claims it’s the latest fashion”, a man with a bleeding arm who represented “random character who appears in the early stages of the TV series in order to show that if you get bitten, you become a zombie”.
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