Have you ever seen a car on the road with comic book, anime, or movie characters and thought to yourself “that’s painful to look at, why would anyone do that”? Welcome to the idea of itasha, quite literally “painful car”. Itasha is a unique subsection of car modification where people design liveries of their favorite characters to apply to their vehicle through vinyl wrapping, similar to how businesses may use vinyl wrap for a professional work vehicle. While many people wont entirely understand why a car person who likes anime would do this to their car, a non car person who usually will be showing appreciation for their favorite character. For a car person however, it could be the final piece to make their build complete in their eyes, after all, whats a race car without an iconic livery?
In this website, we will cover a short history of Itasha, Modern Itasha, Itasha in motorsport, and how to get your own vehicle wrap.