アリス九號 (Alice Nine)

It’s Halloween time again, so time for lots of parties. This year I went to the big party in my local rock club in the style of one of my favorite bands. Unfortunately most thought I was there as an “emo”, but not to worry. Unfortunately visual kei hasn’t really crossed over to here yet. One girl totally recognised my outfit, and made a comment, so that totally made my night! \(^ ^)/. My outfit was a pair of big-soled shoes, skinny jeans, black fitted tshirt, cross pendant and chain, and a band-leader’s jacket, along with blue harajuku/manga/visual kei hair.  The look I was going for was アリス九號 (Alice Nine) who are a visual kei band formed by Shou (将), Hiroto (ヒロト), Tora (虎), Saga (沙我) in 2004, playing at the Ikebukuro Cyber. A while ago, I was in Marui in Shinjuku, and saw a video on one of the screens and ran to one of the girls working there and in bad Japanese, asked her who it was. I got her to write it down, so I rushed off to HMV in Shibuya (well, I was heading that way so went to that one) and picked up the CD.

My favorite of their songs is Yami ni Chiru Sakura (闇ニ散ル桜) which is actually quite an old song, from about 2005 IIRC. Obviously they’re all absolutely gorgeous guys, and look amazing – which I guess is kinda the point for visual kei (visual style, or literally “visual system, lineage, group“) bands. I’ve blogged about this before – probably far to many times really – and I love to go on and on about visual kei to anyone who’ll listen, but if you’re unfamiliar – visual kei bands are usually quite flamboyant Japanese bands, normally playing rock, metal or punk, but very often any type of music. It’s really important to have really good style, and most of the bands wear amazing clothes, and have androgynous looks with stunning makeup and hairstyles. Clearly I’m bound to like bands like this! (^_-)-*

One of my other favorite bands is Malice Mizer, with the amazing and enigmatic Mana, but they disbanded a while ago now. I loved their style during the Klaha era, which was gorgeous funeral gothic style – a style still popular in Mana’s Moi-Même-Moitié clothing label.

The good thing is that I get the chance to dress up again as I’m having a Halloween party on Wednesday too – oh, and I get to dress up every weekend anyway (^_-)-*

DIY Harajuku Style

One of the major parts of the Japanese fashion scenes is customising clothes, making your own, or matching things together to make a look. CRAFT magazine has a feature on making your own Harajuku punk shirt.

Craftzine also have some designs for punk iron-on transfers you can print out onto transfer paper, but it’s always cool to combine these with acrylic painting etc.

Lolita, Zoku and the Western Confusion

Japanese fashions – not unsurprisingly – are really inventive, creative and categorised. In the west, we have the goth scene, which people sometimes mistake for the gothic lolita scene in Japan. In fact the goth scene in Japan is relatively small, and doesn’t have anything to do with the gothloli scene at all. The gothloli term is used to describe a fashion that’s not “gothic” per se, but rather cute and pretty Victorian style. Hair is worn in styles such as bangs, a fringe, ringlets etc – and with a head dress or top hat. Parasols, are often used, as are frills, lace and detailing. Pale skin is preferable, but not required. Generally clothes are black/white, with petticoats, knee-length stockings and ruffled Victorian blouses that are quite prim and proper. The Gothic Lolita Bible is important reading for fashion tips and clothing patterns – as with most other creative fashion scenes, customising or making clothing and accessories is common. There is a fashion scene; “ero-loli” (erotic lolita) but this isn’t gothloli, as this is generally more sexually provocative – at odds with the gothloli cuteness. Similarly, gothloli style is different from “sweet loli” style, which tends to turn up the cuteness a lot. Oh, and it’s perfectly ok if you want to wear lolita fashions if you’re a boy, but as long as you take steps to fit the feminine style; shaved/waxed legs, (tasteful) makeup, lipstick, and mascara.

Some different types of lolita fashion styles are; Ama Rori 甘ロ (Sweet Lolita), Hime Rori 姫ロリ / Ouji Rori 王子ロリ (Princess Lolita & Prince Lolita), Classical Kei Rorita クラシカル系ロリータ(Classical Lolita), Panku Rori パンクロリ(Punk Lolita), Ero Rori エロロリ(Erotic Lolita), Kantori Rorita カントリーロリータ (Country Lolita), Gosu Rori ゴスロリ (Gothic Lolita), Gero Rori グロロリ (Grotesque Lolita), Wa Rori 和ロリ (Kimono Lolita), Itai Rori 痛ロリ (Hurt Lolita) and huge amounts of other sub-sections, such as pirate, aunt and sumo lolita. Often these sub-sections are all placed under the “gothic lolita” category, but as you can see there are a lot of different lolita fashions. Also, often, Lolita fashion will be termed “cosplay”, but the serious lolita fashion follower who wears this fashion every day will tell you that they’re not cosplay.

Often Decora fashion is mistaken as lolita fashion too. Decora or Decora-chan is another street fashion, but uses colourful accessories, traditional Japanese clothing and plastic accessories – often pop-culture toys. This is sometimes incorrectly called “fruits” or “fruits-style” from Shoichi Aoki’s Fruits photographs, published in magazines, and a series of books.

One of the biggest differences in western and Japanese scenes are that generally Japanese fashions are based on visual identity rather than music/literature tastes. Of course someone is more likely to listen to punk music if they wear the Panku Lolita style, but what is “punk” in Japan is much more broad than in the UK. We’re just as bad for categorising music as Japanese are for visual kei (visual style) as there are defined and definite genres of music, but in Japan a band might have on their album a mix of j-pop “boy band” style and doom metal styles tracks. The desire to preclude types of music outside your own chosen genre doesn’t really exist in Japan. People are open minded, but this is because of the emphasis on visual identity. Much the same as most sub-cultures, it’s about identity and belonging to a “tribe”. Zoku (族) is the term meaning tribe or clan, and used to describe Japanese sub-cultural groups and phenomena such as; Bara-zoku “Rose tribe” (gay subculture), Dobunezumi-zoku “Sewer-rat tribe” (company employees in dull clothing), Hashi-nashi-zoku “Chopstickless” (foreign tourists who cannot use chopsticks), Shinkansen joso-zoku “Bullet train girl-tribe” (crossdressers), Hotaru-zoku “Firefly tribe” (smokers/office workers on their smoking break) and Sumaafu-zoku “Smurf tribe” (obscure Japanese specialty workers) along with countless more.

As with everything, it seems on the face of it that the Japanese fashion scene is something otherworldly and strange, but of course it’s just belonging to a group – something which we all do.

Baby, the Stars Shine Bright in Shinjuku

Staying in the spirit of just going to places I like now, I was in Shinjuku again today. To be honest, I woke up at about 9:30 and felt so dead I didn’t think I’d bother going for breakfast, but I went down anyway. Although I walk a lot at home, I really don’t do this amount of walking and definitely not in loads of heat. I think yesterday was quite a hot day too as most of it was spent outside, and not in air-conditioned trains/buildings. After breakfast I checked mail etc, then went back to my room and had some sleep. After lunchtime, I wandered down to Shinjuku as I wanted to pop into Kinokinuya Books, and into my new favorite store; Marui, although you’ll notice it from the big 0101 logo on the modern building. I’m really enjoying knowing where things are now though, and with the help of the most useful book you can buy coming to Tokyo; the Tokyo Metropolitan Atlas, I’m finding places ok. Lots of people say that Tokyo is a nightmare to find places in, and it is true that a lot of places are very small, and you can find them only if you can read the kanji on a little sign outside telling you that’s it’s on the 5F or down a tiny staircase into the basement. Normally people think Tokyo is hard to navigate, but it’s generally because maps are mostly shit.

Japan uses a good system for addresses, which is a series of three numbers, and a district. For example, Onejuku’s address is: 3-18-1 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo. So the “Tokyo” part is easy to understand, that it’s the city. Next comes Shinjuku-ku, which is the ‘ward’. The next part is an area in that ward, sometimes called a “cho”; like Kabuki-cho for example. The three numbers at first look a bit weird, but they’re (from left to right); the sub-area, or “chome” (“ko-may”), the city block, then the building number in the city block. So the address is the 1st building in the 18th block of the 3rd chome in Shinjuku in the Shinjuku ward. See – it’s easy! (^ ^). Most of the buildings have these numbers on them if you look hard enough, but the best part about getting a Tokyo Metropolitan Atlas is that it shows all of the block and building numbers on there. Don’t worry about looking like a tourist with a map, lots of Japanese need maps to get around – it’s a huge place! One way Japanese find where they’re going is to phone ahead and get the shop etc to fax them a map.

Anyway – enough of the Tokyo city planning (although there often doesn’t seem to be much planning at all sometimes).

Marui have a few different buildings in Shinjuku, like 0101 Young, 0101 Men, but I headed to Onejuku as it has a load of floors of gothic, gothic lolita, punk and other fashions. I have to admit I was totally blown away by the gothic fashions. I even own a bunch of clothes in that style, but I was really stunned at how gorgeous some of the clothes were. I just stood open-mouthed at them all, and wandered around probably the most amazing clothes shop in the world….in my opinion of course. Some come here to go to Gucci, Prada, Lois Vuitton etc – this is my designer shopping! The 5F is Gothic & Mode, 6F is Punk & Rock, 7F is Punk & Gothic and 8F is Lolita style. The gothic & mode and lolita concessions are my very favorite. I just love the clothes so much. In fact so much so, that I’m going to get my sewing machine out when I get home as I’m so enthused by it all. I have so many ideas now, but the problem is that I won’t have a load of stores like on Takashite Dori to get all the accessories etc. You can check out the floor guide, but here is a English Google translated version (although auto-translations sometimes are a little weird of course). Marui carries brands such as; Baby the Stars Shine Bright, Metamorphosis, No Future, Peace Now and my very very very very fave; Moi-Même-Moitié (the fashion label of one of my heroes – Mana, singer of Malice Mizer) [official Mana site link]. I think I’m going to *have* to buy something from M-M-M…just because I do (^ ^).

I also realised that Playstation 3’s are about ¥60,000 (about £250), which is almost half the price in the UK – so I think I might look into getting one. Just have to check if it’ll be ok to use in the UK though. Let me know if you know about that kind of thing…flyingjelly1 at gmail dot com…..thankyew…

Nakameguro again… Harajuku again…

It’s true that Tokyo is an expensive city, but it’s relative really. My tastes happen to be cheaper “regular” type eating places, like kaiten sushi, ramen bars, bento and izakaya places. The things I like to buy are manga art books, music, stationary/pencils, manga, t-shirts and strange stuff such as from ranKing ranQueen. I brought a fair amount of money with me, and people warned me that I would probably run out quite quickly, so take more than I thought I’d need. I brought about £300 in currency for the first few days, and a load in travellers’ cheques, to change when I needed to. So far I’ve been here for a week, and only just got through my currency.

Today though I’ve managed to spend a load of money in one. In Nakameguro yesterday I saw a messenger bag, and thought about it overnight. I decided to go back and get it today. I spent far too much on it, and it’s my most expensive bag – but it’s really very cool. It’s made of recycled rubber inner tubes and car seatbelts, and decorated with puncture repair kit patches. They suggest you apply your own patches too to make it more individual.

Speaking of spending money. I went into Loveless in Aoyama yesterday evening, and it’s probably my favorite shop so far. The entrance is a staircase down into the basement, looking like a cave entrance. You arrive in a dark, but airy shop with loud music playing and an assortment of really cool things around; clothes, interior decor objects, music, books etc – it even has a bar along one wall of the shop, but I wasn’t sure if that was for real or not – it looks really cool though. Downstairs from this floor is another floor carrying some amazing clothes – all with amazing price tags. The staff in there were very nice, very cool and very very cute! (^ ^) They do a free style magazine with purchases, and this issue featured photography by a few different photographers, one of which is a Flickr contact – it’s a small art world! I bought a really ostentatious green wooly hat with a huuuge bobble, and a Loveless party CD.

As it’s Sunday today, I’ve spent the day in Harajuku, threading my way through the hoards of tourists crowding around the cosplay people on the bridge. What you don’t see in the photographs of the Harajuku people are the millions of people around them taking photographs. People tend to sit around in the shade at the end of the bridge, and around them is a moving wall of people taking photographs.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll do the traditional culture thing, but I’m enjoying the pop culture a lot. I did want to go to Tsukiji fish market – but that’s a really early start, and I’m now used to the time change, so I’ve fallen into my normal sleeping patterns of about 2am to 10am. That’s 6pm until 2am UK time if you’re texting or phoning.. (^_-)-*

It seems like so long ago that I arrived here, but I thought today for the first time about going back home. Other than seeing my lovely friends, that thought fills me with dread…

I really like it here.

Popteen, J-English & Engrish

[You'll need Japanese characters installed to see the kana in this post]

Using katakana, which is one of the Japanese syllabaries, you can make approximations of English words and phrases so that they can be read by Japanese speakers. For example, there is a new Hollywood film released over here at the moment, called “Rashitsu Yuawa 3″ – spelled in kana as; “ラシツ ユアワ 3″. Can you guess what the film (or ‘firumu’) is? Yup, it’s “Rush Hour 3″. So rather than picking the Japanese for rush hour, or a phrase for a busy time when people are travelling, it’s translated directly into J-English.

I really like this way of writing foreign words and phrases. If you’re a westerner and you know somebody that writes Japanese, then they’ll probably use these characters to write your name, such as the name ベン or ベンジセミン, for example.

I’ve noticed only a couple of translations the other way around, and one of them is the doujinshi (fan manga); Megatokyo. Megatokyo uses some kana in it’s logo, which are: メガトーキヨー. This looks to me, as very very much a beginner to kana, as: “me ga to ki yo”. However, Tokyo is usually spelled using kanji as: 東京 – which I understand to be the two syllables: “to” and “kyo”. So メガトーキヨー, or “me-ga to-ki-yo”, seems to me to be an Engrish way of pronouncing Tokyo, but from the perspective of an English speaker, rather than a native Japanese speaker.

Disclaimer: I have the Japanese reading, writing and speaking skills of an average 2 year old child at the moment, so most probably this is all wrong – as the geek I am; I’m enjoying attempting to decipher Japanese though (^ ^)

There is a hugely popular magazine here called Popteen, which is one of Asia’s bestselling teen magazines, covering fashion tips, love and advice for teen girls. The magazine has quite a unique approach as the models themselves are readers of the magazine. Readers are encouraged to register on the site, and add a portfolio, which may get them featured as a magazine model. It’s quite a nice business model, and helped in no small part by the Internet now. The magazine features “Gal Samurai” manga, which is the story about Ran Kirishima, a junior in the Maizono High School, and a “gal” who likes to hang out in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. When her parents experienced marital trouble, they left Ran in the care of her grandparents in the countryside. It was there that her grandfather, a martial arts master, began training her as a martial artist – and from whom she inherited her martial arts skills. Ran is a fashionably high school student who fights for justice, and looks fantastic while doing it.

Popteen also has a US/English site now, and I read today that Gal Samurai will be published in English too. I’m going to see if I can get hold of a copy of the Japanese manga, but the English version is probably easier for me to read at the moment.

You can visit Popteen’s US site here, for an English version.

Ginza and the Center Guy

Today I have been in Ginza, which is an “up market” area of Tokyo. Think 5th Avenue in Manhattan, or Knightsbridge in London. It’s not really my kind of place, but it was nice to see it. I enjoyed walking around the back streets looking at all of the expensive restaurants and shops. I’m a person of simple tastes really, and that kind of expense never really sits that well for me, but if that’s what people are into – then I’m down with that.

I mentioned the other day about “Hime girls”, and also about the gothloli girls. There is a type of guy you see a lot around Tokyo though, called the “Center Guy” – the name coming from Center Gai (Center Street) in Shibuya. While Hime girls will idolise Barbie and Paris Hilton, Center Guys will be fans of fighters, and wear ripped jeans, pointed shoes or boots, have chains from their jeans, distressed shirts, big hair (a-la-80’s hair metal bands) and leather jackets (although not so much in this heat at the moment). As with Hime girls with their Audrey Hepburn style, Center Guys are quite easy to spot. Normally they’ll be found in Shibuya or somewhere, leaning on a lamppost talking on a mobile with a cigarette. As with everything in Tokyo, as soon as there is one; entire styles can be bought off the shelf, from Jackrose in the case of Center Guys. In there, you can pick an entire outfit that has been put together already, with pants, shirt, shoes, sunglasses, boots and accessories. I’ve heard that some Center Guys wear makeup etc, but I’ve not seen any yet – I’m looking though (^ ^)

I’m going to take a look tomorrow! (^_-)-*

Shibuya and Bins

Today I’ve been in Shibuya; teen paradise in Tokyo. The area is packed with shops and food places, along with a Mandrake (pronounced man-dala-K) anime/manga/stuff shop. It’s packed solid – and I mean *solid* with manga and anime, and has some really rare toys and fantastic cosplay outfits. There is a larger store elsewhere in the city, but this one is almost just as large, and it really is large. I’m used to shops with a small manga section – even shops selling comics and manga, but this is something else! Unfortunately I can’t read Japanese yet, so there’s little point in buying a lot, and it’s hard to work out where things are when you can’t work out how it’s alphabetised. Still, it’s brilliant to experience it, walking down loads of flights of stairs deep into the ground decorated to look like a cave or something, and then arriving in a manga mecca!

There are a lot of teen fashion shops in the area, and interestingly lots of the people that work in the shops were asked to work there as they were regular customers, and displayed a flair for predicting – and even starting – fashions. Some of these fashions last only a couple of weeks, but with plenty of money to bankroll them, quick imports from China, and the desire to be at the cutting edge; there’s always a way.

In Shibuya is a really quirky shop called ranKing ranQueen – a pun on the word “ranking”, which is the “rankings” of popular things. So you can go and buy that week’s most popular diet products, cosmetics, drinks, perfume, CD’s, magazines etc. It’s a really interesting insight into the Japanese zeitgeist. There is also the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing Hachiko (named after a famous dog that would arrive at the station each day to meet his master from work), with huge number of people crossing the road every 3 minutes, as the green walk sign appears. It’s really interesting to stand there and see the waves of people cross the road, stop, slowly build up again, then cross the road again.

All over Tokyo there is one thing that you’ll notice, and I noticed it instantly when I arrived; that it’s so clean. There is no litter anywhere. The most peculiar thing though is that there are no waste bins….at all…anywhere…whatsoever. There are dedicated smoking areas outside, so that people don’t get burned by cigarettes in the packed streets etc, but this is the only place you can find to put a cigarette end. There are some nice signs around the areas too, extolling the care needed with cigarettes. Some even have haiku-like poetry, such as:

The fire disappears beneath his shoe.
Unfortunately, the butt still remains.

Today I found a band I really like called マキシマム ザ ホルモン – which means; Makishimamu Za Horumon (Maximum the Hormone) – they have a bunch of YouTube video too, including the What’s Up People video. The album is ぶっ生き返す (Buiikikaesu)