Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno: Tokyo Teen Fashion Subculture Handbook looks so much like a beautiful piece of candy that it is difficult to resist the temptation to pick a copy up when coming across it in a bookstore. And "eye candy" it certainly is, with great illustrations by Kazumi Nonaka and graphic design by Izumi Evers. The text was written by otaku-logist and Japan subculture specialist Patrick Macias (also the author of one of my favorite books on Japanese film, Tokyoscope, the Japanese Cult Film Companion). Even if you are not into street fashion and youth culture, the book is great fun. And who wouldn't want to learn what is in the heads of those Gothloli's?
But the book does more, it fills readers in on a nice piece of cultural background. Take the link with films. I have seen the Sukeban Girls ("delinquent girl bosses") of the late 60s and 70s in the Pinky Violence Collection, films about female bikers and girly gang fights, but never realized this was a fashion type like the "flowerpower" dancing Takenokozoku and the mad Manba's. A nice feature of the book is also that the ideal boyfriend is pictured - in this case none as these rough girls were not into love and that was rather a shock after seeing the films, which are after all "pink."
Another film link is in the rough and ready Lady's, the speed tribe girls of the mid 80s to mid 90s, one of whom is energetically played by Anna Tsuchiya in Kamikaze Girls. And here, too, the book fills you in on a lot of interesting details regarding this "type."
Closer to our own time we have the Kogal with their weird socks, the blackened Gonguro's and now we live in the age of the material Gals and the Decora's with their overload of cuteness. And so the scene keeps changing as fashions come and go, but one thing is certain: the next wave will be even weirder than the last one. It is good to have this guide as a map of what has gone before and it is to be hoped the authors will continue to follow this fascinating aspect of Japanese subculture.
