Somewhere, over the ocean....

....There's a bucketload of crazy.

How to introduce this one. If you know me even a little, you know I have a strange fascination (obsession) with Japan. So I understand to a fairly high degree just how batshit the entire country is. I have come to expect smiling giant robot crabs. I don't think it's strange when adults run the Tokyo Marathon dressed as Hello Kitty. I had thought that I knew the extent of the madness Japan mass-produces.

I was so wrong, it's actually just humiliating (granted, it'd be more humiliating if I had seen this coming).

Let me ask you a question, then. Suppose you are Japan. Suppose there is a popular animated TV show about a tennis team. You've made a live-action movie for it. You've made a couple of ridiculously slapstick side-animations for it.. You've even had the voice actors produce several CDs worth of songs as their respective characters. And the show is still popular. What do you do?
......
......

Why, it's quite obvious. You create a series of musicals that cover the plot of the original show! You include very bad dancing with racquets! You recreate dramatic matches, complete with video-screen flashbacks! YOU MAKE EVERYONE SING ABOUT DOING THEIR BEST!

WHAT. THE. HELL.

I can't even begin to come to terms with this. It's awkward, it's painful, and it's just plain weird. I know that somewhere in my heart, a rabid weasel of crazy has stood up and cheered, but the rest of me is shocked and trying not to hyperventilate. So of course, I thought I'd share.

I'd also like to state, just for the record, that Bollywood-brand crazy has just been definitively topped.

......There is something seriously wrong with Japan.