Sumimasen Gyaru-son!

Tokyo has a lot of “Maid Cafes”, especially around the Otaku district of Akihabara in the Akihabara Electric Town (Akihabara Denki Ga). These Maid Cafes usually have cute girls dressed in lolita-style maid outfits, and serve the customers with drinks and food. If you pay a little extra, they will even play games with you, such as Connect 4 or draughts etc. These cafes have been the province of young male otaku until now…

The Otome Road (Maiden Road) in Ikebukuro district is becoming the yaoi answer to Akihabara’s otaku centre. Yaoi is a genre of manga popular with girls that focuses on homosexual love between men and is often sexually explicit. Yaoi as a term more used in English speaking countries, as the term “BL” (or Boys Love) is used more in Japan. A restraurant has opened on Otome Road called Lily Rose, which is a BL restaurant. The restaurant’s waiters are all really attractive young men in the BL style. Well, they’re really young women, dressed as young BL guys, with male names like Kaisuke-kun (kun being a honorific like san, but reserved for younger males you’re very familiar with). Generally in BL stories, you have “seme” and “uke”. Just like in martial arts where seme “attacks” and uke “receives”. This term has been used in terms of sexual relationships for a long time, and is in no way pejorative. Seme is generally more a traditional “masculine” role, being restrained, strong and protective – whereas uke would be more andryogenous or girlish in looks and behaviour. The waiters are called “gyaru-son”, which is another great portmanteau-type Japanese joke. Gyaru means “gal” as in a trendy young Japanese girl, with the word “son”, making a play on “garcon” – French for boy.

You might think it’s a little strange for girls to come to a restaurant staffed by girls to see guys – but one patron likes it: “Because the staff are really women, I can eat without fear of a man trying to pick me up, allowing me to take in the beauty of the ‘men’ around me as I enjoy my food.”

It’s just another reason why Japan is the most fantastic country on earth (^ ^)

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 (^_-)-*

Did you just grope me? Shall we head to the police?

In one of my blogs about Japanese love hotels, I mentioned about chikan (痴漢, チカン or ちかん) or “train groping”. Japanese transit authorities have done a lot to prevent groping of women on packed trains, such as women-only carriages during peak hours, but unfortunately, it still exists. To combat the problem, Japanese games developer Takahashi created an ‘Anti-Groping’ appli for mobile phones. It was out in 2005, but has recently climbed to number 7 in mobile phone application popularity. The application displays messages on the phone’s screen in bold print to show to the offender; “Excuse me, did you just grope me?”, “Groping is a crime” and finally; “Shall we head to the police?”.

This application shows a lot about Japanese culture (aside from the fact that Japanese are using mobile applications a lot more). I guess in the west, if that happened, then we’d probably shout about it. In Japan, people tend to not want to make that much of a scene, and women are often too embarrassed to say anything out loud. This application allows someone to get the message across to a “train pervert” without having to cause any fuss. Tokyo transit authorities have arrested a large number of people, but it’s estimated that most women don’t report incidents.

Japanese Naked Ski Lodge TV Prank

I blogged a little while ago about how strange Japanese TV can be, and also mentioned a Naked Ski-slope prank. At the time I didn’t link it, but I think it’s worth linking now

This clip has the popular habit of a superimposed person laughing at the funny parts, which not only tells you when to laugh, but makes it feel like you’re watching the TV with someone else.

Enjoy…

Dakimakura (抱き枕)

Dakimakura (or 抱き枕) are large “hugging pillows” popular in Japan, and some say a new craze. They’ve been around since the late 90’s, but are gaining popularity as covers for the pillows have been given away in a few Japanese magazines, and in stock in a lot more “utaku” shops. Typically they are slightly-smaller-than-lifesize pillows designed to be hugged in bed, and often have screen-prints of popular anime or Bishōjo Game characters. Bishōjo games (or 美少女ゲーム, bishōjo gēmu – game of beautiful girls) are video games, where the player interacts with a cute, anime-type character. Gameplay is pretty much seducing the character, leading to pornographic scenes, but sometimes these games feature characters who will become your girlfriend, and you must then interact with them to keep them happy….or maybe put out (^_-)-* They usualy fall into three categories; dating sim, eroge (Japanisation of “erotic game”) and visual novel – depending on the content.

Although dakimakura are a good way for a keen otaku to get their favorite character into bed, some go that little bit further and opt for the inflatable version, complete with…erm…’openings’. I was in a shop in Aikihabara a while ago where they had a vast range of these versions, along with outfits you could buy for them. I guess the extention to this is the realistic “real dolls” available in Tokyo, and even available to rent!

Interestingly, the idea of sleeping with something like the dakimakura isn’t a new idea, as the chikufujin (竹夫人 – bamboo wife) has been around for a long time as a hollow bamboo roll – about the size of a human – that could be slept against to keep you cooler at night. The air would flow through the chikufujin as you slept against it. Although I’m fairly sure that the blow-up versions aren’t meant to keep you cool at night!

There are lots of dakimakura , available from Mandarake in Japan, and some on J-List too.

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.

Bento Lunches

Bento (in Japanese; 弁当 or べんとう) are small boxed lunches that are very popular in Japan. Traditionally they were rice, fish or meat and carried in a laquered wooden box. In the past, they were very popular with school children, but as the children from poorer families were given lower-quality food, and the children from richer familes were given much better food, it obviously displayed your family’s status, so they were phased out in schools. Recently, they’ve become much more popular, but the same situation applies really. It’s considered a very important skill for a housewife to be able to prepare a nutritious and visually appealing boxed lunch – although now they’re packaged in plastic bento boxes, often decorated with idols, manga characters or nice designs.

Photo from Janine’s Flickr Stream

Typically with Japanese cuisine, they are presented beautifully and often the food is prepared to look like other things, such as rice balls in the shape of a face, penguin-shaped cookies etc. There are a multitude of tools available to the bento maker to prepare these, including cutters, food seperators that look like grass and little bottles for soy sauce in the shape of fish etc.

Historically they originated in the 1200’s and were a “dried meal” called hoshi-ii (糒 or 干し飯 in Japanese), although later on they were presented in the wooden boxes you sometimes see at nice restaurants in Japan. Travellers would often carry a “waist bento” called a koshibentō (腰弁当) which consisted of onigiri (御握り or おにぎり) which are small rice balls shaped into a triangle. Modern bentos often have these too, with a face made of other ingredients to make it more pleasing. Apparently onigiri were used by samurai who stored rice balls in leaves when they were out doing their samurai thing.

There are many types of bento too; choka bento (中華弁当) which is Chinese food, Kamameshi bentō (釜飯弁当) sold at train stations, Sushizume (鮨詰め) “packed sushi”, Shidashi bentō (仕出し弁当) normally prepared by a restaurant and often eaten at parties (containing things like pickles with tempura or katsu curry or sometimes western food) – and also Hinomaru bento (日の丸弁当) – one of my favorites, containing plain rice with an umeboshi (梅干) in the center to look like the Japanese flag (Hinomaru). Umeboshi is a distinctly Japanese food – a kind of plum picked in vinegar. Vinegar in Japan is often different to what the westerner would expect as umeboshi is picked in a barrel with lots of salt – the resulting juice and salt is the vinegar. It can be a shock to those trying it for the first time. It has an extremely sour and salty taste, and is said to improve health, despite the high salt content. For example, if you had a cold, you’d have “okayu” or “Japanese congee”, a type of rice porridge. Sometimes it’s put into Japanese drinks such as shochu for decoration and flavour. I’d recommend adventurous types to look some out at your local asian food store and try them. It’s a real Japanese experience!

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.

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.