Mr. Sato and the RocketDancers assemble for a sexy, electrical-tape intensive music video 【Video】

Believe it or not, there’s a perfectly good reason for these costumes.

At RocketNews24, we have a pretty loose dress code. You can be dressed like a giant bear or Donald Trump, and as long as you get your work done, no one will mind.

Still, even with our flamboyant fashion sense, we almost never strut about the office dressed in nothing but boxer briefs, socks, and electrical tape.

▼ That’s right, we said almost never.

▼ If you’d like to skip straight to the craziness, go ahead and watch this video with no further explanation. If you’d actually like to know what’s going on, continue reading (the same video appears again later in the article).

We’ve actually got a perfectly good reason for wearing these outfits, though, and it’s not because we lost a bet. See, 20 years ago Japanese pop star Takanori Nishikawa took the stage name T.M. Revolution, kicking off an extremely successful era burning up the music charts in Japan. One of his most iconic hits was “Hot Limit,” a catchy upbeat number that owes no small part of its success to its incredibly popular music video which featured one of the most memorable costumes in Japanese pop history.

To celebrate two decades of T.M. Revolution, fans are being recruited to appear as background dancers in a new video for the song, to be titled “Everyone’s Hot Limit.” Entrants have to submit a video showing off their moves, but we decided we’d show off our costuming skills too.

And by costuming skills, we mean that five of our Japanese-language reporters bought matching underwear, stripped down to it, and then taped up each other’s bodies.

▼ From left to right: P.K. Sanjun, Seiji Nakazawa, Mr. Sato, Yuichiro Wasai, and Go Hattori

▼ If you can identify this RoketNews24 reporter by his bulge, you just might be our website’s (or at least his) Number One Fan.

It turns out that making clothes entirely out of tape is harder than it looks, as it’s difficult to keep the lines nice and straight. While you can sort of handle your legs on your own…

…it’s practically impossible to stay on course when laying down strips on your upper body, leading to a “You tape my back, I’ll tape yours” collaborative mentality.

Before long, the transformation was complete!

▼ Next stop: Superstardom!

However, we soon ran into some critical problems, which can be best represented by the following numerical data:

● 0: Group members’ combined years of professional experience
● 37: Average age of group members, and also the average combined beers per weekend consumed by them.

In other words, we weren’t sure that these five, even with all of their powers combined, had what it would take to get the nod from the producers of “Everyone’s Hot Limit.” So we decided to call in some help, and got in touch with professional dance unit Maneater, who’d given P.K. a few booty-shaking pointers before.

▼ Yuri (left) and Kikko (right) of Maneater (and before you ask, no, they didn’t ask us to help them put on their costumes).

With their strengthening presence (and also giving people something to look at other than our original five’s clumsy gyrations), we were suddenly feeling a lot better about our chances.

Still, we really want to get chosen to be appear in Everyone’s Hot Limit, and even with Yuri and Kikko showing us all how it’s done, we were worried that the rest of the group’s subpar moves might be dragging the entire production down. So we decided to pull out our trump card, and added some splashy effects that would make North Korea’s finest digital wizards green with envy.

If you’re ready to experience the full force of our T.M. Revolution tribute dance video, sit down, buckle up, and hit that play button.

With the project wrapped up, we sent off our submission to the “Everyone’s Hot Limit” contest organizers. The results haven’t been announced yet, and should we not be chosen, we realize that some might call our heartfelt, earnest entry a little silly.

To them, we say that faint heart never won fair lady, nor dance contest. And besides, should we win, fame is forever. Embarrassment is temporary.

▼ As are painful skin burns from removing all that tape.

In the meantime, help us answer an extremely important question: Who is RocketNews24’s best dancer?

Follow Casey on Twitter, where he generally appears wearing slightly more clothing than his coworkers featured here.

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