Here’s the latest installment in my English T-shirts in Japan series. This one is modelled by a ten-year-old boy in one of my English classes. I really don’t know what the message is here. Do you? Does anybody?
What were the designers thinking? In fact, what was the mother thinking when she bought this T-shirt? Perhaps this is how it happened…
Designer: Okay, I’ll draw a scary dragon and add some random English phrases from Fox News. Perfect!
Retailer: Nice! A scary dragon with lots of English. We’ll sell these no problem!
Mother: Great! A scary dragon and some English! My son will love it!
Son: Woah! AÂ mad dragon and some wicked cool graffiti!
Me: Hey, nice dragon. What does that say? Hang on, let me see…
Eye-catching fashion with fear plucking at one’s heart. Horror of potential terrorist acts involving biological weapons.
I dare you to comment! 
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All I can say is…. Do not kick yourself! honey spunk!
It could be worse … there could be some explicit language on that shirt
There seems to be a resurgence of clothes carrying words and phrases that should be translated a little better. Last winter I had seen a jacket with a patch saying “F-ing cold” (the whole F, of course) and the other day there was a guy on the train wearing a shirt that called him a bitch.
I’m told that English on clothes is “cool”, and I guess ignorance is bliss. I wonder what people would say if they found out their clothing was making fun of them, though.
That said, I’d still love to make a line of t-shirts for English-speaking countries that focuses on hirigana, katakana and kanji. I’d have things like “baka” and “aho” written all over them, and people would think it cool because there are no Roman characters
I think we do the same thing here with Japanese print.