6 Japanese Subcultures That Are Insane (Even for Japan)
Japan is to crazy what the Middle East is to oil: sitting on quantities that can supply the rest of the world for decades. Of course, we say that with nothing but admiration. Their mind-blowing and often unsettling subcultures have faced the pressure of high expectations and stifling social codes, and responded by taking rebellion to new, terrifying places.
#6.
Dekotora
When lots of Americans picture Japan, they're picturing Tokyo--one big Blade Runner-esque city. But take the subway out of the city, past the endless suburbs and there's a Japanese heartland just as rough and tumble as the deepest parts of the South. There are even Japanese truckers.
But unlike American truckers, who spend their off hours doing meth and hiring inexpensive prostitutes, Japanese truckers spend their free time--and thousands of their yen--turning their trucks into something out of an extremely flamboyant, musical version of The Road Warrior.
Known as dekotora (a combination of the English words "decoration" and "truck") these guys add amazingly elaborate spoilers, lights, boxes and elaborate murals to their rides.
A dekotora truck can have a Cadillac bumper, illuminated chrome side-running boards, paper lanterns, luggage racks that light up like Christmas trees, detailed murals featuring dragons, samurai and cartoon characters, and even metal tubes shooting off the front that serve no purpose at all.
Amazingly, most of these trucks are actually used to transport goods. Sure, the guys may only turn on all the lights when they're showing the cars off to their buddies, but they also work in these things. It's like the FedEx guy coming to pick up your package in a neon David Lee Roth jumpsuit and a pink feather boa. Awesome, in other words.
#5.
Gyaru
Named for the English word "gal," gyaru are young girls who dye their hair sickly shades of silver and blonde, get fakey tans and slather the makeup on thicker than Bugs Bunny in drag. They can be found hanging out on street corners in almost every major city, but the movement was born (like almost every freaky Japanese style) in the ultra-hip Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo.
There are all sorts of subgroups of gyaru, and each successive generation gets weirder than the last.
First came the kogyaru, high school girls who wore sexualized versions of their school uniforms (supershort skirts and incredibly saggy socks) and dyed their hair blond. Once that style peaked, some girls started to go off the rails. Known as ganguro, they slathered dark makeup on their faces, painted their lips white and attached shiny stickers to their faces.
Don't look it in the eyes!
Some of the ganguro, however, weren't satisfied with looking like panda hookers and went one terrible step further. Calling themselves yamanba, which means "mountain hag" in Japanese, these girls made themselves look as ridiculous as possible, and wore makeup that would make John Wayne Gacy sleep with a nightlight.
#4.
Lolita
On the Internet at least, the word "lolita" conjures up images of sweaty middle-aged dudes who hang around schoolyards and get their hard drives confiscated by the FBI. But in Japan, lolita refers to another bizarre subculture. Unlike their gyaru contemporaries, who cake on the makeup and bare as much skin as legally possible, lolita's dress up in clothes so modest, Queen Victoria would tell them to loosen up a little.
Clad in petticoats, high-collared dresses, bonnets and wielding fluffy parasols, they walk the Bladerunner streets of Tokyo looking like graduates of The Tim Burton School for Girls. There are all kinds of lolita's, each with their own variation on the theme, but they all share a love of women's fashions that died out before their grandmothers were born.
And these aren't just outfits they wear to special clubs or garden parties. You can see grown women in these full Victorian doll costumes on trains, in book stores and wolfing down cheeseburgers at McDonald's.
Why, you may ask? It has something to do with the rejection of male-created beauty standards and sexualized dress. Yes. In Japan, to express their rejection of oppressive cultural stereotypes and proclaim their independence, women dress like creepy school girls from 200 years ago. That sounds about right.
There's an Asian girl in my history class who dresses like she's from a past [European] era. It had never occurred to me until reading this article that she was probably following the Lolita style. Thanks, Cracked! =)
ReplyThose male hosts look like woman...
ReplyI don't know what visual kei you've been listening to, but that's not at all what I've heard.
ReplyHow is this weird? Oh, and visual kei is sexy.
ReplyI noticed that he left out one particularly interesting aspect of 'Lolita' culture: A fairly large number of lolita dressers in Japan are heterosexual males in drag.
ReplyThere's a sociological theory that Japan has such ...um ... colorful subcultures because of two continuing trends over the past decades - rapid economic growth, and rapid fall in birth rates. Okay, sounds weird, but here's the logic. The economic growth means Japan has become intensely globalized and very wealthy. And the rapid fall in birth rates means that the number of young people in Japan is shrinking rapidly.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesAdd these together, and you get a generation of very wealthy, very privileged, only-child kids, in a very globalized culture exposed to a wide variety of cultural input.
That's the watered-down version. Not necessarily a widely accepted theory, but an interesting idea - what the effect of a low population of kids with lots of money would have.
Although my theory is that it's at least in part because Japan basically had to replace their entire culture 60 years ago after that militant imperialism thing didn't work out.
Damn my disproportionately large fingers... my accidental down vote has been countered with an up vote. Apologies from my huge mitts.
Eh, they gave it a hard run.
I was wondering how they all afford such expensive clothing, that stuff looks damn expensive.
I agree with you. I think the cultural breakdown that happened right after world war 2 especially had a big impact on Japanese culture. probably the generation born after world war 2 were exposed to the authentic japanese culture much less than the prior generetion had been, and then, without a culture that they could base, they started to create entirely new sub-cultures. just my personal thought..
Oh man I haven't thought of Battle Royale in a long time. Time to check if it's on Netflix.
ReplyThis article should be called '6 Examples of Research Failure'...
ReplyI was thinking "A review of outdated Japanese fashion trends from someone who knows nothing about them." But I appreciate that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Also, comedy website.
Not really research failure but I think the writer get scared with a guy with piercings or maybe he doesn't get out too much of his trailer
Fapped, because ... Hayami Mokomichi. Rawrrr.
ReplyI really like lolita fashion, the costume designs and quality of the materials are fantastic. Dolly kei and mori girl are cool too.
ReplyLook at all these fat anime nerds yammering about japan.
ReplyJapan is actually a place, you know, not just the origin of a type of animation.
You know the irony of the lolita scene is that it ended up becoming a major fetish in japan.
ReplyI'm surprised that they didn't show pictures of Gokusen for the Gyaruo. Well, they did put up a picture of Hayami Mokomichi, so close enough. xD
ReplySo Niki Minaj is just participating in Gyaru...
ReplyIf that's true, then she's making them look bad. Not the least of which being an annoyingly terrible rapper.
Y'know, I'm gonna be honest, the truckers in this list, I already forgot what they're called, they don't seem too different from rednecks here, spending (relatively) large amounts of cash on chrome, flame paint jobs, etc. The only difference is that it's Japan, and it has to have that Japan seal of quality to contain at least 25% more WTF.
ReplyI would make that at least 300% more WTF
I did my undergrad in Indiana, all of the "rednecks" who could afford to approach that level of chroming for their trucks weren't rednecks.
you forgot non-visual kei it came well before visual kei and is equally as followed it is probably one of the strangest they are a subculture who try to become androgenous as possible they rarely socialize with outsiders and their greastest proof of love is to tell each other their gender
ReplyWait, so what happens if two well- disguised heterosexual people of the same gender fall in love, and then reveal their genders to be the same?
I suppose it'd be a bad movie for one...
@Thorium: I'd assume that's the entire point.
"nothing worse than young people with bad taste in hair and sloppy manners"??
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThe Yankii girl gangs carry razor blades and disclipine wayward members with lit cigarettes!
the yankii are basically rejects from the yakusa (excuse the misspelling) or japanese mafia if any of you live in a small town think of the "gangs" who at the very most do serious vandalism and hit each other so they can feel like a real gang
That'd what the Yakuza do. They aren't as bad ass as anime and movies make them seem.
uh Roast, the yakuza do a little more than vandalism and hitting each other. They basically work like the mob does in America. I don't know what movies you're referring to, but in their heyday the yakuza probably did whatever that movie portrayed. But, like the mob, their glory days are behind them and they mostly just do racketeering and whatnot.
The picture of the girl with the caption "Don't look it in the eyes!" totally reminded me of the South Park episode about New Jersey where they show Snooki as some sort of weird creature.
ReplyI also have to agree that the trucks are AMAZING!!!!!!!!
Snooki want smooshsmoosh
Gyaru fashion hasn't been cool since the early 2000s. I've got a few friends in Japan who go to Harajuku regularly and they say they've either not seen it or only a few people are seen in it.
ReplyActually, Harajuku wouldn't be my first guess where you'd find them.
That "Who's No. 1" picture has nothing to do with hosts! That guy is an actor (is it weird that I recognized him immediately?) and it lists some bands below.
Reply