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:
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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.)

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SONGS YOU SING AT KARAOKE

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”

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Bandō Mariko’s book Dignity of Women『女性の品格』 may be piggybacking on the immense popularity of Masahiko Fujiwara’s 2005 bestseller The Dignity of the Nation 『国家の品格』 but the former somehow manages to discuss the abstract concept of “dignity” in a way that avoids diatribe and provides practical information for the reader. A self-help book for women who would not admit to reading self-help books, Dignity of Women offers Japan’s second sex a total of 66 to-do lists for becoming a “strong, kind, and beautiful woman.”

A Tokyo University graduate, author Bandō Mariko’s first-rate credentials are the key to establishing the credibility such an authoritative self-help book requires. She led a 34-year career as a civil servant, beginning in 1969 at the Prime Minister’s office, while commanding a role as a working mother and a behind-the-scenes champion of women’s rights in the male-dominated world of Japanese politics. In addition, Bandō served as General of the Bureau for Gender Equality and Consul General to Australia before taking on her current position as professor at the Graduate School of Showa Women’s University. In other words, Bandō perfectly embodies the kind of woman that tickles the fancy of successful young career women. Yet rather than writing a biographical success story about being a professional woman with an indomitable spirit, Bandō has instead concocted a guidebook for the modern woman with a single crucial point: just because you may reach the very top tier of Japanese society populated mostly with “undignified” businessmen that doesn’t give you the right to start acting like them.

Ms. Bandō begins her book by recognizing the existence of the aforementioned The Dignity of the Nation but argues that dignity of an entire nation is not attainable without the dignity of every individual belonging to that nation. While she admits that courage, responsibility, sense of logic, integrity and resilience are attributes that must belong to dignified men and women, responsibility for the dissemination of dignity falls on the female.

Bandō’s tutelage is divided into behavioral and philosophical tactics, and it is the combination of the two, she writes, that brings about true dignity. The seven chapters — entitled “Manner and Dignity”, “A Dignified Way to Speak”, “A Dignified Way to Dress”, “A Dignified Lifestyle”,“A Dignified Social Life”, “A Dignified Behavior”, and finally, “A Dignified Way to Live” — can be grouped systematically into those that apply to a woman’s professional life and those that apply to a woman’s personal life. The over-usage of the word “dignity” on every page, however, quickly becomes grating, especially since a brief scan through the first few lessons is really all you need to comprehend what a dignified woman would and would not do. Throughout the course of the book, the dignified woman reveals herself to be a female social organizational construct as palpable as fashion subcultures like Kogyaru or O-nee-kei.
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Along with otaku culture and the cognoscenti culture centered around independent music, art, and fashion, Japanese delinquent subcultures form a key component of the “Japan Cool” construct. I use the term “delinquent subcultures” to describe fringe youth groups like the monstrously-tanned high-school Ganguro, raucous Bosozoku motorcycle gangs, gleefully-anachronistic Gothic Lolita maidens, FRUiTS-type cutie-punk street fashion maniacs, and “Rollers” who once danced in Yoyogi Park every Sunday to pre-recorded hits of the 1950s. But unlike other facets of foreign attraction towards Japanese pop culture, these groups offer no products to buy and few individuals to admire; we are simply attracted to their sheer existence out of a Romantic fascination with anti-social organizations costumed in unique and outrageous “style formulas.”

Although foreigners seem to be keen on fashion delinquents and delinquent fashion, Japanese policy-makers and domestic gate-keepers have never had much reason to view these disparate and desperate youth as anything other than vermin. But even without formal invitations to participate in the process of re-branding Japan, delinquent subcultures are still critical to the new narrative. “Cool” may now primarily exist within a commercial marketplace where corporations manufacture goods and chic hierarchies of media organizations spread the marketing word to youth consumers and their elder imitators, but grass-roots rebellion is essential for anchoring cool back to its roots — spontaneous cultural explosion on the streets and deep within the underground.

Patrick Macias and Izumi Evers’ new book Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno (Chronicle Books, 2007) — a “Tokyo Teen Fashion Subculture Handbook” — has collected and chronicled the stories and styles of the most vital post-70s female delinquent subcultures in Japan.¹ Thanks to a base of solid research, Macias sculpts an exciting and informative narrative of cultural history that manages to capture the bratty fun of the subjects. “History” is the key word here: the authors are less concerned with quickly-dated portraits of modern movements and more interested in showing off the incredible ecological diversity of previous fashion explosions. (And as someone mentions in the book, there has not been a new delinquent subculture of note since the Kogal, so all books about these youth groups are automatically “history” to a certain degree.) The mission at hand may ultimately be a visual one, and Nonaka Kazumi’s skillful illustrations are indispensable for proper consideration of the wardrobe innovations, makeup techniques, and accessory mayhem that defined these subcultures as something new and original.

Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno organizes the female delinquents into three major groupings: Bad Gals (Sukeban, Takenokozoku, Lady’s [Female Bosozoku]), Sexy Gals (Kogal, Gonguro, Manba, Kigurumin, Material Gal), and Arty Gals (Nagomu, Gothloli, Decora). While this coding is succinct and accurate in principle, there can never really be a simple classification system that brings these groups together along geometric lines.

For example, the smiley-faced Heian-era-inspired, E.L.O.-dancing Takenokozoku are included in “Bad Gals,” but they seem to inhabit a completely different aesthetic universe than the general yankii tastes at the heart of the Sukeban and Lady’s. Even now, the “badness” of those two are so obvious that the Takenozoku look like a harmless Sunday drama club outfitted in matching kung-fu shoes. At the time, however, the conservative authorities viewed the relatively tame street dancing in Yoyogi park as another pressing facet of the “youth problem” — synchronized park dancing as potentially dangerous as razor blades, reckless autobikes, or underage drinking.

The “Sexy Gals” grouping, on the other hand, appears at first to describe a mosaic of divisions in the gal/gyaru universe, but the chapter simply tackles the historical progression of the larger gyaru subculture. In an almost perfectly-linear development, the relatively cute Kogal morphed into the frightening Ganguro/Gonguro, who took a more extreme form in the Mamba and went ridiculous for a half-year in Kigurumin animal costumes. In the last few years, the more mainstream members and older graduates discovered the allure of capitalist society and adjusted their styles to score rich husbands and piles of luxury fashion goods.
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1. I saw an eight year-old kid riding the Inogashira line today in an official red Bape “24-Hour Television” t-shirt and yellow Sesame Street backpack. Nice work, Nigo. The new Shibuya store up near PARCO may make the brand even bigger with the milkbox set.

2. Comme des Garçons had a rather unusual selection of sweaters and sweatshirts at their Aoyama store. By unusual, I mean, “slightly generic and reasonably priced” — like something you would see at Ships. The price tags, however, are printed with an enormous “Made in China / 中国製” stamp. This entire collection seemed like a guilt-instilling honey-trap for less desirable customers: “Yes, you can buy a small piece of our brand, but know that this is made in China, cheapo.” I may have fallen prey the genius art/marketing team of Kawakubo and hubby, but I’ve always been completely sold on the idea that Comme des Garçons has no need for piddling customers who aren’t on the conceptual level. Now with PLAY and these China exports, however, the brand has almost completely removed the serious hurdles to a mass audience and has even stopped feigning reticence.

Interestingly enough, these items are only available at the directly-managed CdG stores — probably because the margins are too thin to make wholesaling possible. (Don’t you love it when I talk business? Rack jobber. You like that?)

3. For all the talk about manufacturing in Japan being so expensive, small clothing labels are still best sticking to Japanese factories — in terms of both quality and price. The problem, however, is that most of these workshops are staffed exclusively by grandpas and grandmas whose kids have long abandoned any interest in taking up their craft. In the next twenty years, we are going to see the complete disintegration of this industry — not necessarily because of being out-priced by globalization, but because sewing and fabric dying did not look particularly sexy in the 1980s when their kids went off to the City to chase dreams. Will the grandkids pick it up? Besides some denim work in Okayama, I doubt it.

4. Do yourself a favor and read every single Japanese fashion magazine one month. The messaging ranges somewhere between monotony and conspiracy. You wouldn’t think that Classy and Glamorous would have much in common, but they’ve both taken the same central directives as their core content. So everyone’s in leather “riding jackets” and leopard print and houndstooth check, and magazines simply find the right way to nestle these new elements into previous subcultural and demographic conventions.

5. The November issue of Vivi has a story called 「噂のめちゃ売れ服」 (“Clothes that are Rumored to be Selling Well”), and get this, the super popular clothes featured in the piece are exactly the trends advocated in the October issue. Seeing that September was muggy and hot and generally August-like, I seriously doubt that the editors of Vivi really had an evidence that these very Autumn styles were selling “like hot cakes” back three weeks ago when they wrote the story and it was 28° C outside and the very idea of wearing a trenchcoat and a sweater dress was pure evil. But the “rumor” angle lets you both get away from actual reporting/objectivity and into legitimizing your fashion advice as a solid slice of social ether / 世間.

6. I am not sure there was a single fashion shoot in October’s Popeye that featured a styled mix of various brands on a specific theme. The magazine is now 60%+ advertorial, with Mr. Sukezane and Co. receiving assignments to work within the box of a single brand. If you wonder why Japanese consumers understand the minor positional differences between brands so well, the advertorial is clearly a big part. Brands are allowed to be buy completely unadulterated pages and present their side of the story — even using the magazine’s star models to maintain maximum plausible deniability. Now, the same first-tier brands buy pages in all of the major magazines, causing some serious overlap and redundancy, but hey, the system works for the big boys and it’s not like magazines make money from readers. The remaining question is whether kids just want manual catalogs or they want editors to give them something original. But think about it: most people drowning in a sea of social pressures would rather have a textbook for SCUBA than critical and artistic musings on marine biology.

7. Color’s back. JJ had six solid pages of every possible type of colored tights, modeled by a legion of amputated legs. Spur regrettably use cringe-inducing self-reference in their main fashion story “We, fashion people, are everything but black” but at least they’re pro-chromo.

8. Strange crossovers on the subcultural kids. Elastic’s reporting on some weird gyaru-gothloli crossover in Popteen. And I spotted gyaru-cutie hybrids at the Shonen Knife/Kiiiiiii gig (photo courtesy of Suzuki Mio.) I think these particular girls come from the CUTiE side of things, but they’ve picked up some cues from their peers at 109.