Dialogue: Can Character Bikes Become "Culture"? Yamaha's Deadpool Edition and Building Character in Steel

I still remember the first time I saw that scene. In 'Deadpool & Wolverine,' the two of them, battered and bruised, start walking side by side — that lazy, world-weary conviction of a hero who simply cannot die. And now that same Deadpool and Wolverine have become Yamaha motorcycles in Brazil. A Deadpool edition of the FZ15, and a Wolverine Z edition of the Crosser Z. Limited to 500 units each, unveiled at the Japan Festival in July. Kajimura-san, I already know you're going to write this off as 'just some stickers.'

Hey, don't just read me like that right off the bat (laughs). Well, you're not wrong, though. First thing I thought was, 'okay, but what's actually under the hood?' The engine's just the same 150cc BlueFlex commuter they sell in Brazil, right? So all that's really been touched is the graphics, plus the figure that comes with it. I judge every new bike by two things: who's going to customize it, and whether it'll become raw material for a builder five years down the line. Looked at that way, this is factory paint that nobody's laid a hand on yet. Calling that 'culture' — honestly, I think that's jumping the gun.

That's exactly the point. You say 'nobody's laid a hand on it.' But to me, the moment a character and a machine become one, the hand of a story has already touched it. Think of Kaneda's bike from 'AKIRA.' That machine never existed — it's a drawing by Katsuhiro Otomo. And yet builders all over the world have spent decades trying to bring it into the real world. Fiction comes first, and the steel chases after it. I think that's a kind of culture too — just one that runs in the opposite order.

...Man, bringing up Kaneda's bike is a low blow. It's a good example, I'll give you that. But think it through, Araki-san. Kaneda's bike didn't become culture because Otomo drew it. It became culture because there were crazy people all over the world who said, 'I'm going to build this thing for real, with my own two hands.' Beating out a one-off cherry-red cowl, wrestling with wiring that refuses to fit — you'd get it if you saw it up close, that kind of intensity. What Yamaha's collab does is have the factory do that entry point for you instead. Easier, sure, but the sweat comes in the wrong order.

The order of the sweat, huh. That's a good line, unusually good for a critic — I'm stealing it. Still, I don't take lightly what it means for the factory to set up that entry point. This collaboration comes with a numbered action figure. It's a joint effort between Yamaha, Marvel, and Iron Studios, and apparently if you connect the bases together they form one continuous scene. The Deadpool edition runs 23,490 reais. In other words, what's being sold here isn't a 'motorcycle' — it's 'a story you get to own.' An R-rated, immortal hero arriving at your house as a 150cc commuter bike — that mismatch in scale is exactly what I find interesting.

Limited to 500 units, comes with a figure, right. ...I'll admit it's smart as a business move. That's exactly what worries me, though. Words like 'limited' and 'numbered' point in the opposite direction from a culture of customizing. Buyers tend to go the 'keep it stock so the resale value doesn't drop' route. Bikes weren't built to be put on display. Still — I'll be honest here — having a character bike as someone's first motorcycle isn't a bad thing.

Oh, a concession?

Not a concession, just reality (laughs). Think about it. Say some 18-year-old in Brazil buys a Deadpool-edition FZ15 as their first bike. They ride it for three years, beat it up, and one day think, 'I want to make this cowl more mine.' That's the moment they cross over to the customizing side. Becoming raw material for a builder five years later — that's what it means. A character bike is a strong entry point. The reason to fall in love with it is huge right from the start.

That's exactly it. I often say that fiction gives real motorcycles their resolution. That was true for me too. I loved motorcycles before I knew anything about them — a sixteen-year-old who stayed up reading 'Aitsu to Lullaby' until morning and fell in love with bikes before ever riding one, who later became Kaneda on a NINJA. Fiction hands 'meaning' to people before they've ever touched steel. The young people this Yamaha collab is going to reach have almost certainly loved Deadpool before they loved motorcycles. I can't deny that order of things.

I read that story before, in the serial. ...Yeah, that kind of thing is good. Me, I went the other way — I touched steel first and found the meaning afterward. Standing in a workshop full of metal dust, realizing later, 'oh, this is the same technique used to beat out Kaneda's cowl.' Lately I think that even if the order's reversed, you end up in the same place. Whether you start from fiction or from welding, you land in the same spot: 'I want to make this one bike mine.'

A beautiful convergence. So the collab bike itself isn't the culture. It's that someone falls in love with motorcycles because of it, and when they eventually become what you call 'raw material' — that's when culture actually starts to move. I think that's what this comes down to.

That's right. So I'm not going to shoot down this Yamaha thing outright. At the sticker stage, it's not culture. But it is a door into culture. ...Let me say it now, since this is the moment for it: a motorcycle isn't a vehicle, it's a culture. That's exactly why factory paint can't be the finish line. It's the starting line.

I'll take that closing line. I feel like I got to witness a good scene today. — Just one last thing. Wolverine's claws, Deadpool's mask — both started out as lines someone drew with a pen. Those lines land on a fuel tank at a factory in Brazil, and someday get peeled away by some kid's hands and repainted into something else entirely. From line to steel, and from steel to yet another story. I think that's how motorcycles keep getting passed down.

...Sometimes you sound more like a shop-floor guy than I do (laughs). Well, that's about the size of it. Araki-san, next time we find an actual customized character bike at some custom show, let's go check it out together. You'd get it if you saw it up close — the feel of how a line actually becomes steel.