Presenting “Uniqlo,” from the country that brought us “Unico.” Yes… Decidedly not in our element, we walked around Uniqlo initially trying to figure out what is was, and what “Uniqlo” could actually mean. It almost sounds like “Uniglow,” who almost sounds like a super hero in a lost ’70s comic book series… who wears a chalk blue unitard, white pleather boots, sports a rainbow-colored unibrow (which provides magical powers) and has a glowing shield that he hurls at villains as they try to escape but also serves as a diaphragm when he makes love the to the enormous Nubian princess, Aunt Va-jay-jay.

Okay, so, exactly what is Uniqlo? Our best guess is that this clothing store was started by a group of Japanese school girls who won some kind of lawsuit and decided to open a store in SoHo upon graduating from whatever type of school Japanese school girls go to. Walking through the women’s underwear section made us feel both emasculated and aroused, like the time a gang of middle-aged female gym teachers force-fed us Viagra as a joke at a party. To confirm our aforementioned suspicions, there was a sale commemorating Golden Week in Japan, the week that a golden marshmallow descended from heaven and blessed all the people of Mt. Fuji. We must admit that the marble sinks in the bathroom were nicer than we had expected, but the motion sensors were tough to coax water out of; it was like trying to find a secret G-spot in the air under the faucets. The bathrooms were all white, like the clientele of the store (guess the Japanese school girls are exporting their sensibilities to the unsuspecting Americans–isn’t it usually the other way around?).

The paper towel dispenser worked about as well as a canoe made of saran wrap. Modernized gender signs replaced the better-known men’s and women’s icons on their respective bathroom doors. The updates were a stick figure pushing a stroller through Park Slope (the man) and a stick figure agonizing over an appointment calendar (the woman). We were not sure where we had just been as soon as we left, but were glad we were gone.

Rating: 6.0