Comments for Néojaponisme

Comment on The History of the Gyaru - Part Two by W. David MARX

W. David MARX — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:00:37 +0000

I don’t think it’s that complicated. The “gyaru” were the women who partied at Juliana’s and wore skimpy outfits. The “kogyaru” were the high school girls who imitated their style but were clearly a much younger breed.

In the early 1990s, the gyaru were clearly a “thing” and kogyaru were their offshoot. It was only around 1995-1996 that the kogyaru became an understood subculture of its own.

Comment on The History of the Gyaru - Part Two by Chuckles

Chuckles — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:34:04 +0000

Excellent work.
The format though, takes a while to get used to.

How relevant is the “Juliana’s” comment from Spa?
“Little sisters of Juliana’s girls” – is there implicit rivalry here; some sort of reactionary impetus to the origin of the Kogyaru? Or is the idea the maternalism and originative status of the Juliana’s crowd?

Comment on Neojaponisme New Design by W. David MARX

W. David MARX — Sun, 13 May 2012 11:52:47 +0000

Thanks for the feedback. We’re looking into the floating title bar.

Comment on Neojaponisme New Design by Leonardo Boiko

Leonardo Boiko — Sun, 13 May 2012 11:27:32 +0000

The new design might be mobile-friendly, but it’s not very small-screen–friendly. On my eeepc (800×480), the sticky ‘néojaponisme’ logo and gray wavy thing take up half the screen, so that I can only see a paragraph at a time in the space left.

Comment on Neojaponisme New Design by Mr. Smegma

Mr. Smegma — Sat, 12 May 2012 16:34:47 +0000

Yo NeojapsMofos keep that mfshit up, just typo BS don’t like bro.
More vidcasts lazy ass!

Comment on The History of the Gyaru - Part Two by W. David MARX

W. David MARX — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:44:43 +0000

I cited a stat in the Kristof article. I didn’t really use any of his analysis.

Comment on The History of the Gyaru - Part Two by Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Thu, 10 May 2012 17:22:33 +0000

Kristof, Nicholas D. “Tokyo Journal; A Plain School Uniform as the Latest Aphrodisiac.” New York Times. April 2, 1997.

Citing Kristof? Shame on you!

Comment on The History of the Gyaru - Part Two by W. David MARX

W. David MARX — Thu, 10 May 2012 02:36:52 +0000

I would guess that the girls themselves did not use the word “kogyaru” at first, and even people like PARCO were hesitant to use it because it was mostly used among older men. It would be interesting to go through materials to discover when the word became standardized and kogyaru started calling themselves kogyaru.

Comment on The History of the Gyaru - Part Two by M-Bone

M-Bone — Thu, 10 May 2012 02:21:11 +0000

I saw an Asahi TV documentary feature in late 2003 that presented the results of a street survey of Shibuya and Shinjiuku high school girls. It sought to debunk the enjo kosai myth and suggested that while 5% of girls had engaged in some sort of activity with older men for money that fewer than 1 in 300 had performed sex acts for money.

Yet ironically it was these very magazines that first noticed the kogyaru phenomenon and arguably standardized the subculture’s name as “kogyaru.”

They were looking for a sequel to Yellow Cabs.

Comment on Neojaponisme New Design by Leonardo Boiko

Leonardo Boiko — Wed, 09 May 2012 12:51:10 +0000

That “w” is really distinctive.