The Coming of Age Ceremony is the Japanese celebration that officially marks the passing into adulthood of all boys and girls that turned 20 the previous year. It’s normally steeped in tradition and – unlike some other countries’ coming of age rituals where kids put their hands in fire ant mounds or drink 15 beergaritas or whatever – it’s generally a pretty subdued affair until the youngsters-only after-party.
But one Setagaya Ward Coming of Age Ceremony saw things get pretty rowdy this year when a gang of bikers – called bosozoku – decided to crash the party. Bosozoku (literally, “wild running clan”) are groups of teens and 20-somethings that share a love of impractically kitted-out motorcycles, breaking traffic laws and all-around crude behavior.
The wild antics of the bosozoku have earned them a perennial place in manga and anime as the go-to faceless villain horde – sort of the Storm Troopers of modern anime stories – even as actual membership wanes and the gangs fall out of fashion in major cities. We suppose kids just don’t want to put their lives on the line to be rebellious when they can just rail against society by crawling into freezers while on the clock and posting it to Twitter.
So the bosozoku attack was both unexpected and weirdly reminiscent of a cheesy manga storyline – with photos showing the regular 20-year-olds, dressed in kimono and suits, appearing somewhat shocked and annoyed, looking around for a heroic teen tennis master to wing miraculous backhands at the hooligans until they leave.
Full disclosure: since there appears to be very few details about these pictures on Japanese forums, it’s entirely possible the gang actually belonged at the ceremony and just decided to make a bold entrance. They wouldn’t be the first newly-minted adults to take things over the top this year.
Source: Itai News
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