RAK under construction

What you see above, is the hood of a 2003 Infinity G35 Coupe by Team LoveHate, which appeared at Sac-Anime Summer 2009. It is known as the first G35 Itasha, in the world. Read further for more pics of this beautiful car.




This sign was placed outside near the vehicle, and gave some interesting info about Itasha cars, the car itself, and it's origins.
Luckily I wrote down the information, just in case you couldn't read the small text in the picture. The sign reads as the following:

Car:2003 Infinity G35 Coupe
Affiliation:Team LoveHate
Engine:POP short ram intake
Exterior:Multi-layered Custom Vinyl Wraps, Painted rear valence
Interior:Custom shift nob
Audio:Precision Power 2400 D Class Amplifier, Kicker solobaric L7, custom subwoofer box, SAT audio converter
Wheels/Suspension:20" Staggered Zenetti Stella, Tein S Tech

What Is Itasha?

Itasha　(痛車)is a Japanese term for an otaku fad of individuals decorating the bodies of their cars with fictional characters of anime, manga, or video games, (especially bishojo games or eroge.)
These characters are predominately "cute" female. The decoration usually involves paint schemes and stickers. Automobiles are called Itasha, while similar motorcycles and bicycles are called Itansha (痛単車) and Itachari (痛チャリ), respectively.

Where did it come from?
Itasha derives frm combining the Japanese words for itai (痛い, painful) and sha (車, vehicle). Itai here means "painful", which can be interpreted as "painfully embarrassong" or "painful for the wallet" due to the high costs involved. The name is also a pun for italian cars (イタリア車, itaria-sha), is truncated in Japanese slang as Itasha (イタ車.)
(End of sign text.)

Well that sums up most of the info about itasha. More pics ahead-

A close-up of the hood. Cookies to whoever names the characters and either game/anime/manga they are from...

The upper right of the car. We see the kanji for Itasha here.

The back left side, you can fully make out Alucard from Hellsing.

The back of the car, not sure which character she is...hmm. Kudos if you guess. ^.^
We can see the license plate there, showing the car's sponsors- "Signs By Tomorrow."

Another view of the back from a different angle. The vehicle is so shiny you can see other's reflections if you look closely. We also see Demyx's guitar on the right from KH2. Maybe the Itasha belonged to Demyx?

The back right side of the Itasha. Atrocious sun glare there.

On both sides of the car, large sheets were laid out with art corresponding to that side of the car. On the right side we see concept art for the graphics used.

And on the left we have excerpts from the Hellsing manga underneath the Hellsing graphics.

The view from standing just a wee bit back. A large banner with the kanji for Itasha, waves in the wind.

The Itasha was featured near the front of the Radisson Hotel during the time of Sac-Anime Summer 2009 which is held in Sacramento, California USA. The fountain area outside was a beautiful place to display the car. In the picture above we see comrade, Theo, (Vizard Bankai Ichigo cosplayer on the right) who is still training to become the ultimate otaku under my teachings. He has learned much since I mentioned him in the FanimeCon 2009 preparation article.

The rims are really nice, shiny silver with a red border.

The upper right side of the car. The light there wasn't on, it was just sun glare. Also if you can see it, there is a butterfly/moth thing who's wings are being shot off by the gunner seen earlier on the back of the right side.

A view of the inside. I think the Hollow side of Ichigo really likes that shift stick.

This rests on the left side of the dash.

And that sums it up!

If you stumbled across this article and would like to learn more about the convention this Itasha was featured at, please check these links:
http://runaroundkazu.blogspot.com/2009/09/sac-anime-summer-2009-day-one.html
http://runaroundkazu.blogspot.com/2009/09/sac-anime-summer-2009-day-two.html
Sac-Anime before the Radisson move:
http://runaroundkazu.blogspot.com/2009/08/sac-anime-look-into-sacramentos-anime.html

Feel free to share you comments! If you attended SAS09, what did you think?
If not, are you into Itasha, or what do you think about them? Would you be embarrassed driving around in an amazing car like that?