Harajuku is the Disneyland of global youth culture. Just as the Magic Kingdom has spacially-divided “Lands” to represent different parts of the human imagination (Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, etc.), Harajuku has Punks browsing at Vivienne Westwood, Mods shopping for authentic surplus army parkas, Skinheads scuffing up their red Docs on the curb in front of Londsdale, clean-cut 21st C. Hip Hoppers laying down Fukuzawas for some Ice Cream, Skaters at Stüssy, college Preps bouncing between Lacoste and Ralph Lauren, ’60s girls with decal eyes storming Courrèges, and Paris-dreaming Art Students in deconstructed garb floating down the hill from Comme des Garçons. This one Tokyo neighborhood has more stores dedicated to youth street fashion than anywhere else in the entire world. And not only does Harajuku singlehandedly preserve dead subcultures, the district has created some of the most unique fashion looks of the last two decades: namely, Decora-chan/Hyper-Cutie Punk (as seen in FRUiTS) and Gothic Lolita. No matter how much attendance declines in the next decade due to anemic Japanese birth rates, Harajuku has secured an almost-permanent place as one of the Seven Wonders of the Pop Culture World.

In light of this, an entire book on the Harajuku neighborhood is almost criminally overdue, and we are blessed that fashion writer and editor Tiffany Godoy finally delivered with her colorful new work Style Deficit Disorder. Godoy — probably one of the very few Westerners to ever have worked as a real-deal editor for a real-deal Japanese art or style magazine — hits all the most critical points for understanding the historical development of this youth culture sanctuary. Japanese fashion critic Hirakawa Take, KERA editor Suzuki Mariko, and Honeyee.com boss Suzuki Tetsuya pop up to provide short essays of macro-level analysis, but the book mostly tells the story of Harajuku through photographs and short profiles. Godoy offers introductions to the most important people, places, and brands — from the Central Apartments (locus for the birth of young independent brands in 1970s), Yacco Takahashi (Japan’s first stylist), brand Bigi, An•An’s original model Kaneko Yuri, seminal high-fashion magazine Ryuko Tsushin, New Wave band The Plastics, Comme des Garçons, iconic Takarajima magazine CUTiE, stylist Sonya Park, hyper-cute brand Super Lovers, beyond-weird street couture label 20471120, original A Bathing Ape graphic designer Skatething, and over-hyped, under-stocked Ura-Harajuku brand Bounty Hunter. SDD somewhat lacks an overarching narrative to link together these encyclopedic references, but redeems itself by addressing topics that have never seen the daylight of English: in particular, Rockabilly brand Cream Soda and iconic punkish designer and Godmother to Ura-Harajuku, Ohkawa Hitomi from Milk. For anyone who wants to know the whos and whats of the neighborhood, I highly recommend the book. (Reactions will be divided on the in-your-face graphic design.)

Style Deficit Disorder greatly succeeds at its goal of laying out the facts behind Harajuku’s development. The subtext, however, may be even more interesting. By taking a step back and doing a meta-reading, the book allows us to glimpse into the organizing myths the West has built up around this sacred fashion neighborhood. The Harajuku of SDD’s introductory chapter is quite literally the most amazing place on earth: masses of youth successfully fighting to create their own trends at a “grass-roots” level in the face of an increasingly-irrelevant global fashion market pushing industry-decided clothing on a rigid seasonal basis.

This “Harajuku Myth,” as I understand it, is comprised of five statements:
Continued »

The cover story in the February issue of Takarajima 『宝島』 is titled 「バカ化する若者」— “Youth are Becoming Idiots.” The small print above the title states 「”ゆとり”チルドレンが日本を滅ぼす！」You see, our idiot Japanese children — spoiled by the less rigid “yutori” education established in the early 1990s as a way to bolster individualism and creative thought — are ruining Japan. Tough to be a kid in Japan these days: you are not only stupid, you’re a traitor.

Takarajima, however, is hardly broaching a new topic. Earlier this year, Japanese critic Uchida Tatsuru’s latest book 『下流志向──学ばない子どもたち、働かない若者たち』」 (my trans: Aiming Downward: Kids Who Don’t Learn, Youth Who Don’t Work) got some attention, another in a long series of “下流” titles about the (semi-voluntary) descent of middle-class kids into the pits of lower-class hell. The basic idea that the younger generation has failed “society,” however, goes back even further — one of the few constant themes in 20th century Japanese social criticism. Maybe the radical young soldiers in the 1930s who assassinated liberal politicians and demanded greater power for the Emperor proved themselves good kids in a warped sense, really living up to the ideals of the Imperial Rescript on Education. But ever since then, young people have basically dropped the ball generation after generation: juvies, hippies, bikers, consumerists, whores. Youth of the 1980s were derisively christened 新人類 (shinjinrui, The New Breed) — almost as if to say, these kids’ rotten values must be the result of genetic dysfunction and devolution, like overbred mini-chihuahuas.

So like every cohort in the past, the current batch of Adults are ripping into their own offspring, regretting the Whitney Houston Principle that “Children are our future.” The cast of guest authors at Takarajima, however, are not suffering from mere moral outrage. They have objective measure on their side!

Famed management consultant Ohmae Kenichi starts things off by noting that Japanese 20-somethings do not sufficiently feel urges for material things. They no longer desire cars (this is supported by lots of data and a panicky auto industry). They do not buy computers, and their share of total web users has dropped from 23.5% in 2000 to 11.9% in 2006. They are not interested in international affairs apart from the occasional vacation abroad. They have low expectations for the future, nil ambition, and not enough wrath to make any challenges to an economic system that puts all the nation’s assets into the hands of their elders. With such low salaries and pitiful future earning potential, young men find it too sadistic to ask for their girlfriend’s hand in marriage — especially when women can live a life of luxury under their parents’ auspices.

Ohmae makes a particularly good point that the weakened consumer power of youth in Japan has forced manufacturers to re-gear their marketing and merchandising to suit older customers. (This is evidenced already in the fact that almost no youth-oriented products made the “Hit Products of 2007” guide in Nikkei’s newspaper Marketing Journal.) Since most material needs are manufactured or at least greatly influenced by the commercial complex, companies ignoring youth essentially amplifies the problem of their insufficient materialism.
Continued »

In the December issue of OL fashion monthly CanCam, the editors provide a useful guide called「モテ子の習慣 vs. ブス子の習慣」to delineate the lifestyle differences between girls who attract boys — the so-called “moteko” — and those who do not — “busuko.” The article has sparked a bit of backlash on the internet with CanCam readers who were shocked to find out that they weren’t in the proper athletic club in high school nor drink the right alcohol on a date. (Hint: never start the night with a beer.) Apparently based on “survey results,” some of the findings are pretty on-message and obvious — “hot girls look like Ebi-chan!” — but some of the critiques may speak painful truths to readers — “bejeweling your iPod is probably not appealing to boys.”

Here is a translation of the guide to that thin blue border between being an attractive moteko and a completely worthless busuko.

(Bonus: pictures of the actual pages here.)

image #2

image #3

image #4

image #5

image #6

Moteko
• Otsuka Ai “Sakuranbo”
• aiko “Kabutomushi”
• Ayaka “I believe”
• Dreams Come True “Love Love Love”
• mihimaruGT “Koi suru kimochi”
• Do As Infinity “Ever…”
• HY “Nao”
• Otsuka Ai “Planetarium”
• Kōda Kumi “Taisetsu na Kimi e”
• Matsutoya Yumi “Yasashisa ni tsutsumareta nara”

Busuko
• Akikawa Masafumi “Sen no kaze ni natte”
• The Toraburyuu “Road”
• Ishikawa Sayuri “Amagigoe”
• DJ Ozma “Age Age Every Kishi”
• Kahala Tomomi “I’m Proud”
• MISIA “everything”
• Morning Musume “Love Machine”
• Shiina Ringo “Kabukicho no joō”
• Cocco “Tsuyoku hakanai monotachi”
• Britney Spears “Baby One More Time”

As if Mos didn’t have enough problems being unable to fulfill his alimony payments, now Daiso is stocking ¥100 dress socks emblazoned with his half of the main photo from the Black Star album.

image #2

The following essay originally appeared as the June 27, 2007 entry on critic Uchida Tatsuru’s personal blog. We have published this translation without the author’s express permission, and we accept all responsibility for any problems resulting from its publication.

Media people keep asking me why the magazine CanCam has won complete victory over its rivals. Yeah, I wonder why that is… (Like I would know…)

Thankfully, however, many of my students are CanCam readers, and they may be the world’s most knowledgeable experts on the semiotic differences between CanCam and its competitor titles JJ and Vivi. One of those students Ms. M-mura raised a daring and radical question in our seminar: what does the CanCam fashion look’s ultimate goal of being “super attractive”¹ say about the state of things?

A nice perk of being a women’s college professor is the ability to pick up such delicious topics from the field without even lifting a finger. Most of my fellow teachers use the classroom to pass on knowledge to students, but I end up acquiring knowledge from students. Since I draw a salary for this, I can understand the criticism that I am all give and no take² or just holding a candle to the devil.³ But this is a puzzle of magazine strategy that even media people can’t solve. So if my students tell me, “Professor, we can give you the answer,” there’s no way I can turn them down. Please, students, tell me why.

According to Ms. M-mura, the CanCam blowout started after the magazine’s sharp recovery in 2004 — suddenly jumping from a circulation of 420,000 copies to 510,000. Now at 620,000 copies, CanCam enjoys a wide gulf between itself and its main competitor JJ (circulation of only 510,000).⁴ The May issue of CanCam had 644 pages (60% advertising), whereas JJ only had 466 pages (51% advertising). The editors of CanCam are acting as if they seek the honor of being “The Heaviest Magazine in Japanese Publishing History.” With five copies, you’ve got yourself an industrial weight.⁵

CanCam’s concept is being “super attractive.” Not just “attractive,” but “super attractive.” The originality is all in the adverb “super.” In contrast to JJ’s fashion strategy of “having the man of your dreams fall in love with you,”⁶, CanCam’s goal is “to be loved by everybody.” Ms. M-mura writes, “The target for female ‘attractiveness’ is not just limited to possible marriage partners. For example, female TV announcers all wear CanCam-style ’super attractive’ fashion because they want to be broadly embraced by everyone from kids to the elderly.”

I see.

So, what kind of strategic survival advantages do the CanCam girls see in “being loved by everyone”? This is a very interesting topic.

Continued »