Stood by the side of the road, with her arm raised in the standard, I’m-crossing-so-please-be-careful gesture, this statue of an elementary school student is presumably just a reminder to motorists. But, with her sad eyes and damaged features, she acts as a deterrent in more ways than one.
A face that no doubt haunts the dreams of countless generations of children, not to mention parents and people who take her picture.
Should you want to, there's also the option of following Tokyo Times by full feed RSS, and also Twitter too.
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
*shudder*
Indeed!
Looks like he got beat up.
Yeah, maybe a warning about the traffic and bullying…
I was shocked when I saw this. And looked so sad like calling for help.
Yeah, I was taken aback myself. The damaged mouth/nose definitely has something to do with it, but then there are those eyes…
Is it just me… or where the white paint has come off looks like a real face underneath (it’s late, perhaps I’m just imagining things). But it sort of makes me think of some Bgrade horror/sci-fi of a small english town where people go missing, only to be found turned into street mannequins. Spooky – but thanks for sharing this with my dreams. Oyasumi… I think.
I see it, too. I can’t help but think that the chipped re-paint job does this statue a real disservice. Even when it was fresh. Can’t imagine what prompted the white face and blue/pink features in the first place. Almost like it was a prank….
definitely looks like there’s an human under the picture, kinda a mummified / waxed… O_O scary
What makes it really creepy, and perhaps I’m stating the obvious here, is that it appears the face was originally painted with lifelike skin tones and features, but was then for some reason painted over with a blue and white, sad-clown look. The white paint now chipping off and revealing the human face beneath makes it all the more disturbing.
Seems I should have refreshed the page before posting that.
To be honest it wasn’t something I’d picked up on until Ben, Lizzy and Cynthia mentioned it above.
Needless to say it is now all the more unsettling….
Another scary face! What with the scarecrows and this creature, I feel as if there are eyes everywhere…
I think the damage to the statue is a comment on the perils of walking, cycling and driving in Japan. Never come across a population so determined to cause/die in a traffic accident of some description.
I know. It often amazes me that the streets aren’t littered with bodies the way cyclists and pedestrians seem utterly oblivious to anything and everything around them.
I totally agree it’s the colors underneath and the way they show through that’s so creepy. Without them I could seem myself simply thinking “That’s kind of odd,” and moving on. As it is my first reaction was “What’s tha… Ewwww…”
It was the sad eyes that initially struck me.
And here with my rudimentary knowledge of the language and culture always assumed that these were advertisements for clown schools.
Haha!
I was scared, like there a human face behind the white paint. Seriously, that’s really creepy.
T_T
Yes, not something I’d like to see everyday, that’s for sure.
A souvenir from the House of Wax? O_O
Quite possibly!
Ronald McDonald’s early years.
Haha, that could well be true!