From Kabukicho to Trocadéro

In April a Japanese X user with the handle @soreha_Maguroo posted a screenshot of a TikTok video by Uncanny Runway accompanied by multiple replies and quotes mockingly referring to the French girls in the video as "Eiffel-yoko." This is a parody of Tōyoko Kids which is a name given by the Japanese public to a gang of runaways that hang around near Shinjuku Tōhō Building in Kabukichō, known for its Godzilla head. These runaways include children from ages 9 to 24 and come from all over Japan. They all gather near Shinjuku Tōhō Building because it's easier to blend in with the homeless people and the children that await their parents' return from work in the sex industry. Many of these children ran away from home since they were bullied or neglected by their parents. They literally live out of suitcases in which they packed all of their belonings. A lot of these children are addicted to narcotics and are victims of child prostitution. The aforementioned post caused a lot of discourse in the J-fashion community and I have some strong opinions on this as well.

Girl wearing jirai kei fashion in Kabukichō (courtesy of GREE News)

Jirai kei is a fashion style that is gaining a lot of traction in the West right now. The style is an amalgamation of Japanese girly fashion and "yami kawaii" (English: lit. sickly cute) fashion. It gained traction as a style worn by staff in concept cafés in Shinjuku. This was done as a form of sexualizing a stereotype named "ryōsangata." Its online popularity started with Japanese beauty YouTuber Suurero doing a makeup challenge based around this stereotype. This term literally translates to mass-produced in English, but in Japanese it's used to refer to women who have unoriginal style, interests or behavior (i.e. a basic bitch). In the early 2010s the Japanese version was comparable to the Western version: girls or women who enjoy pretty normal stuff. Over the years the Japanese meaning has shifted to a specific demographic: women who love idols, wear Japanese girly fashion and hide their faces on pictures to preserve anonymity. This is seen as a rather sad lifestyle. After all, these women dedicate their entire lives (and income) to their favorite idol, or oshi in Japanese. Some of these fans would take these parasocial relationships to the next level by hosting lonely birthday parties with tons of champagne (the idol wouldn't be present).

Japanese men who are looking for a potential partner see this kind of behavior as a red flag which is completely understandable. I like comparing it to BTS's ARMY and, just like many other netizens, I fear their wrath. "Fearing BTS stans and no one else" has even become a meme showing just how easily one could get cancelled when poking this K-pop loving bear. The issue with both the K-pop and idol fandom is that they get angered very easily due to their lack of social understanding. In Japanese these women with said red flag are called jirai joshi (English: lit. landmine girls) referring to how they come across as mentally unstable as they lash out very easily. Shinjuku nightlife businesses wanted to capitalize on this idea by opening concept cafés with women who act and dress like these girls as servers. Even YouTuber Suurero named the first makeup look from her series jirai joshi resulting in more people linking jirai kei to ryōsangata and the "crazy girlfriend trope." This first video went viral and caused many more people to hop on this bandwagon (standard fare on social media).

Tomorrow, I'll be someone's girlfriend Volume 5 by Hinao Wono

The mangaTomorrow, I'll be someone's girlfriend by Hinao Wono is another reason for its popularity (this wasn't the mangaka's intent). This manga tells realistic stories about women dealing with topics that are considered taboo in Japan, such as rental girlfriends, sugar babies, plastic surgery and loneliness. Yua Takahashi is the main character in one of these stories and can be seen on the cover of the fifth volume. She is a runaway who's active as a prostitute because she needed a way to finance her host addiction. Yua could also be considered a burikko, or mawkishly cute, as she refers to herself in the third person, can't pronounce "cha" properly turning the suffix "-chan" into "-tya" and uses "pien" (the pleading face emoji 🥺) a lot. Besides that she is seen mostly wearing white, pink and black outfits sporting a small Stark backpack from MCM in pink. Her look is the blueprint for what is considered jirai kei, with many wearers even saying that Yua inspired their fashion style. At the risk of sounding like an out-of-touch old lady, I have to admit that this seems quite concerning to me as I don't think one should idolize an antihero regardless of how cute they look. In the manga Yua is seen selling herself to older men to fund her addiction to host clubs. Sadly, this is a very common occurrence in Kabukichō as hosts force their repeat customers into the prostitution or the adult video industry to pay off the costs they made at the club. 

Yua's outfits are inspired by the staff of jirai joshi concept cafés: she and girls from Tōyoko Kids idolize these women for getting so much attention. Her wearing MCM's Stark backpack was also a deliberate choice by the mangaka because it is locally known as the "Kabukichō school bag" with many girls from Tōyoko Kids sporting it, though it started out as a bag popular with hosts and cabaret club girls. According to some Japanese people, the reason these girls dress the way they do is that they are too afraid to wear more "flashy styles" from Harajuku like Lolita fashion or punk fashion. They don't have a lot of money, or prefer spending it on hosts and alcohol, so they stick with fast fashion companies that sell girly fashion like DearMyLove, Rojita, Bubbles, Liz Lisa and MocA-Tokyo. That fact that jirai kei girls don't spend a lot of money on their clothes was even pointed out by Atelier Pierrot in an Instagram Reel earlier this year. With jirai kei being enormously popular right now, many Japanese fashion brands are trying to make bank off of people trying to follow this trend. This resulted in multiple Japanese girly fashion brands and Lolita brands releasing more white, pink and black pieces like Angelic Pretty's Cinema Lady JSK and Atelier Pierrot's Haunted Doll OP. As well as Sanrio's My Melody and Kuromi booming in popularity with the MeloKuro series and MCM's Stark backpack dupes popping up on the second-hand market.

Girl wearing an MCM bag with My Melody hangers (courtesy of News Post Seven)

I'd mentioned before that the Japanese public thinks jirai kei girls love Harajuku fashion styles but lack the funds or confidence to wear them. DearMyLove released a new line named DearMyLoveEmily, which marries jirai kei with Lolita as showcased by WonderTeaParty on YouTube. With this line they're trying to fill this hole in the market but they actually filled another since their sizes go up to 6L with a maximum bust of 134 cm, accommodating plus size women looking for Japanese girly fashion. Unfortunately there have been some commercial endeavors that were very unsensitive. For instance, in 2021 host club RAAR even organized an event where you could be transformed into a jirai kei girls including "cute self-harm scars." This just shows how some people in Japan still don't take those with mental health issues seriously by just minimalizing it to an aesthetic. Luckily there is a place for Tōyoko Kids where they can find refuge. At Nippon Kakekomidera's office they can get help to get their life back on track. Every Saturday afternoon the office hosts a Mirai Café (English: lit. Future Café) where the youngsters can get a hot meal hoping to lure in more homeless youngsters.

Tōyoko Kids (courtesy of Friday Digital)

The French jirai kei girls from Uncanny Runway's video seemed to be unaware of all of this which is very unfortunate. I think people should always educate themselves before engaging in an activity. This is even pointed out by some comments saying that these people must think it's cute because Japanese girls wear it. Most aesthetics sprout from a kind of subculture, this holds true everywhere including the West. For example, coquette aesthetic started out as the Nymphet subculture that was mainly active on Tumblr. They were focused on the idea of girlhood and sexual maturity, romanticizing the novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Over the years this unhealthy subculture has been diluting the coquette aesthetic with barely a trace of Nymphet left. In Fashion victims I'd already explained how Gen Z is known for democratizing style which is partially what is happening with jirai kei. Unfortunately this is not entirely the case since jirai kei girls in the West also act like public nuisances in both online and offline spaces, as shown in some TikToks. By doing this they're creating an unnecessary us-versus-them mentality which doesn't really help them in distancing themselves from girls from Tōyoko Kids. If you wish to enjoy this style it's better to refer to it as Japanese girly fashion because that's its actual name and has no controversies or subcultures linked to it.

Thank you, and take care.