Once again, the Mask Girls become ambassadors for idol culture by drawing in a Western eye. Joanna Lumley, star of many things but people away from the Beeb’s orbit probably know best from AbFab, has a new BBC series on Japan, and for this episode did a stop-in at PARMS, where she (seems to have) enjoyed a night of Kamen Joshi and talking with performer and fan alike.

There’s some weird picture-in-picture situation with this video, but it’s the only freely available version that I could find after hearing about the show the other day; if you have something that can embed cleanly, please holler.

Skip to like 14:20 or so

The little live clips of the performance are fine (I think this is the most “inside PARMS” I’ve ever seen, and definitely with the wota in full force). My favorite little bit was the interview with @snow_of_cherry herself, Sakura Yuki — in English; yes, while she spends her evenings in a hockey mask, she spends her days studying cognitive psychology at ol’ U of T.

Joanna gets it right, though; these shows really are something else.