Pikotaro -- KANREKI 60

Wikimedia Commons

Having turned 60 recently, this is supposedly a big thing in East Asian culture. In Japan, it's called kanreki（還暦）and when turning the big 6-0 was once seen as having made it to a ripe old age, the family celebrated and the birthday person had to wear some sort of red costume. Well, I do have that red vest that I bought back in the late 1980s. It's lasted through Canada, Japan and then Canada again.

Remember Pikotaro（ピコ太郎）, aka comedian Daimaou Kosaka（古坂大魔王）, who set the online world on fire about a decade ago due to his zany "PPAP: Pen-Apple-Pineapple-Pen"? Apparently, Canada's own Justin Bieber was the guy who lit the fuse because he had been laughing his internal organs out from watching this Japanese funny guy verbally juggling these three disparate nouns in a twee technopop tune.

Well, a few months ago, Pikotaro was back up and running for the first time in a while, although his alter ego Kosaka has continued to make the rounds on Japanese TV. He came out with another technopop take, but this time on the aforementioned kanreki and the video has him in full customary regalia and dance mode. Compared to "PPAP", "KANREKI 60" hasn't exactly lit cyberspace on fire but at least it's nice to know that Pikotaro hasn't forgotten the youngest of the silver generation.