What is it with young women in Ukraine?

Regular Trog readers will remember Valeria Lukyanova, the “human Barbie doll,” whom I have blogged about in the past. Well:

A teenaged girl from Ukraine, who models herself on characters from Japanese anime films, has changed herself into a living cartoon character, complete with miniature waist, vividly-coloured hair, and a defined pout.

Anastasiya Shpagina takes style inspiration from the cartoons and computer animations that have a huge following in Japan…

This is Anastasiya:

The story says she hasn’t had any surgery to alter her looks…yet. But she has lost “6 stone,” whatever that means, and spends a lot of time on makeup.

Valeria Lukyanova, who has had surgery, is also from Ukraine. They got together, looks like, took a few pictures and traded eye-makeup tips.

Here’s my question: where are the Japanese or French or Moroccan teenage oddities? Not that there aren’t any number of people in the Western world who make themselves into odd things – Lord knows we’ve seen enough of them right here in Madison enough lately. But isn’t it just a little weird that these two stories both come from Ukraine?