For the most part, guys hitting on girls isn’t really a part of Japanese culture. Thankfully, there are a number of social institutions that take its place, such as frequent student mixers, company drinking parties, and singles’ dinners organized by groups of friends with an exactly equal number of unattached men and women present.
All of this largely circumvents the need for a guy to go up to a girl that catches his eye in a book store or coffee shop with nothing more than a smile and a hello. It also means that if a man is out and about and spots an attractive woman, if there’s no one to give him a formal introduction, a glance at her pretty face, and maybe a moment where her eyes meet his, is about all that he can ever hope to take away from the encounter.
For some guys, though, that’s enough, and for them, there’s a new website featuring nothing but short videos of cute girls walking past you.
Surechigai Bijo, literally “Beautiful Women Passing By,” is the brainchild of Kento Kubota, the president of web content producer Hi Inc.
Kubota’s inspiration came from a real-life experience just like the kind shown in the series. “I was walking around town one day, and as a really pretty girl and I passed by each other, I thought, ‘This is it!’”
Hi Inc.’s attention to realism can almost be a little unsettling. The women featured don’t dress or move any more provocatively than what you’re likely to see on the sidewalks of Tokyo. They neither linger as they come into the camera’s focal point nor flash a pair of bedroom eyes at the lens.
Despite the voyeuristic framing, though, Surechigai Bijo isn’t shot guerilla-style by wandering Tokyo with a camera and filming unsuspecting fashionable ladies about town. The women featured are paid actresses, most of whom are aspiring fashion or hairstyling models, or others seeking to get their foot in the door of the media and entertainment industries.
Hi Inc. has done an uncanny job, though, in recreating the fleeting seconds after a man notices a women walking in the opposite direction. At the opening of each video, the image of the women is blurry, then becomes sharper right when a guy’s attention would be shifting to her.
As a matter of fact, each model is only in focus for about two seconds. It’s such a short amount of time that one wonders why Hi Inc. even bothered making videos instead of just a collection of photos, but Kubota says this is all part of the plan. “Men are naturally greedy, and with a still image they’ll go hunting for flaws,” he feels. Surechigai Bijo’s clips, though, give a sudden spark of excitement, he contends.
Just as expected for a website with good-looking girls as its reason for existence, Surechigai Bijo has plenty of male fans. Kubota says that some women, though, also enjoy coming to the website, which is updated every weekday. Since the models are all dressed in normal street attire, as opposed to swimsuits or other revealing attire, Surechigai Bijo’s female visitors enjoy checking out their fashionable ensembles.
Another secret to the series’ popularity is its use of mundane locations. “We’ve chosen to emphasize places that are firmly rooted in reality, to make it all the easier for viewers to fantasize,” explains Kubota.
While we can see the potential market for the sort of feasible daydreams Surechigai Bijo is peddling, the bar seems set particularly low on a couple of videos. For example, if you accept that the camera is supposed to be your point of view, in a few of the videos it’s not even clear that the girl notices you.
In others, she seems to be silently judging you, perhaps while she’s on her way to a date with her boyfriend.
▼ “Nice shoes, dork.”
Also, we’re not saying that Tokyo is filled with supermodels on every street, but being the country’s fashion capital, and also one of the most densely-populated cities on the planet, you could probably see just as many women of this level of beauty by, you know, actually walking around town and looking at girls.
If for some reason a real-life stroll is out of the question, though, whether because you’re too busy, it’s the middle of the night, or your foot was recently chewed off by a grizzly bear, Surechigai Bijo is there to provide that immediate pick-me-up that comes from thinking some random cute girl just smiled at you.
▼ Plus the frustration and regret of not asking for her number and thereby never seeing her again.
Sources: Excite News, Surechigai Bijo
Images: Surechigai Bijo