THE INEXPLICABLE WORLD OF JAPANESE FIGURINES

You may have seen this video before. It's a remarkable clip of a Japanese pop concert with a screaming audience of thousands. Cut to the chase: the object of the crowd's affection is a three-dimensional, all-singing, all-dancing hologram. Her name is Mika Hatsune and like all Japanese cartoon women she looks like a very tall child. Her existence is both impressive and deeply unsettling.

This week an anonymous man in Japan parted with about $6,000 on a Yahoo Auctions site so that he could own a small, naked, plastic statue of Mika. The figurine in question was made by some hobbyist. What in God's name is going on? Even a rabid fanbase as dedicated and giddy as Radiohead's would balk at spending thousands and thousands of pounds on a piece of merchandise made by some Herbert in a garage. Even if it was a model of Thom Yorke with his boobs out.

I have never and hopefully will never understand the nebbish world of Japanese figurine collections. They look awful and are extremely expensive. Usually they're vaguely pornographic too. Displaying a whole collection of them is akin to a person deciding to not ever bathe again. An anti-social gesture, designed to put up a wall between them and all other humans. Once you have shelved and polished your brood of plastic anime sex-children you have effectively snuffed out the light of all future social interaction.