Towards the end of September, MINISO launched what it calls the “pain-style project” campaign. It’s called “痛风计划” in Chinese, playing on the words literally meaning “gout project”. MINISO tries to capitalise on the “painbag” or “ita-bag” trend this summer.
Ita-bag (痛包, from original Japanese痛バッグ) literally means painbag or painful bag as “痛い” can mean painful to watch or cringeworthy in Japanese. Started from itasha (痛車, lit. painmobile), the expression originally meant cars that are decorated with paint schemes or stickers of large-scale anime art on the outside, usually of
(sometimes scantily dressed) girls. Adapted from the automotive world, ita-bags and ita- other things began to mean bags or other objects decorated with any ACGN art or figure in any medium, from pin badges to plushies.
MINISO also introduced a “paintruck” touring through the city of Guangzhou and 5 Guangzhou shops being decorated in the “pain” style, or ita- style. The truck has become a major “check-in” spot for ACGN (anime-comics-games-light novels), or “erciyuan” (二次元, 2-dimension) crowds.
The ita-bag first came into prominence in the late 2000s and early 2010s and has been revived in the recent Y2K trend among young people. In China, the Olympic diving gold medallist Quan Hongchan brought the ita-bag to the mainstream since she was closely followed by the press during the Paris Olympics in July.
The MINISO event takes some liberties with the definition by including regular cosplay and another Y2K revival style, the decora-kei which is known for its bright neon colours and excessive accessories. But the ita-bag is quite similar with the badges and plushies hanging on it. Also, the MINISO pain truck (“痛”车) that tours the country, although sharing the same characters/kanji, is not an itasha, but a clear truck that is decorated with all the ACGN merchandise inside.
With the tweaks, the event became a celebration of all Guangzhou’s “erciyuan” or ACGN crowd and beyond, since ita-bag has entered the mainstream. With MINISO’s licensed IPs becoming a source for both decoration and a communal topic. Offline events like this will not only bring attention to the newly “normalised” subculture but also bring some ACGN creds to MINISO, which is now focusing on IPs.
