Japan 2011 Stylewatch: Soshoku Kei, Otomen, Gyaru-o, Chara-o, Sholita

Continuing a Mostly Harmless tradition of Japanese stylewatching for the New Year (Gackt, ikemen, and Jero in 2008, Hikaru Utada in 2009, Star Blazers in 2010), for 2011 I asked the Full Metal Archivist what Japanese trends might go viral this year. Her first idea was changing styles of masculinity, a kind of turn toward the feminine among younger Japanese men, which is interesting in itself but also in the reactions it has sparked at home and abroad. Not that this is all that new for 2011--from the moment I first set foot on a plane to Japan, I realized that my usual cues for reading male sexuality were not all that useful among Japanese men--but what is different is the media attention in the past couple of years devoted to tracking what is being framed as a generational shift in Japanese masculinity.

First, some quick definitions:

Soshoku Kei: This is the now-classic "herbivore/vegetarian" generational tag that started making the rounds in 2009. It resulted in a Japanese movie last year, which was part of a larger dialogue that even Newsweek picked up on, portraying soshoku-kei danshi (which they translated literally as "grass-eating men") as a symptom of Japan's economic malaise: "Toyota's fall from grace caps a 20-year economic malaise that is infecting the popular culture, manifesting itself in a preference for staying home, avoiding risk, and removing oneself from the hierarchical system." Heck, even a Carnegie Council writer put his 2 cents in!

To see for yourself what everyone's talking about, check out this clip from Cool Japan:



Compare CNN International's brief overview from mid-2009:



Otomen: OK, to understand what an otomen is, you 1st need to review the definition of an ikemen. So if an ikemen is a teen idol or male hottie, then an otomen is one with a hidden girlish side. For a drama that has about the same relationship to this social category as Douglas Coupland's Generation X has to the eponymous American generation, head on over to dramacrazy.net and watch the 12-episode J-drama Otomen. Me, I'm wondering if the 1st big musical number from Tangled (you know, the one set in the Snuggly Bunny), which imoto and onechan were brave enough to see in the theater last week (1st time evah in the U.S. for both!), is a parody of this Japanese phenomenon.

Gyaru-o, Chara-o, Sholita: I may be wrong, but I think of these as different styles of being an otomen, with the first being a kind of a male bimbo, the second more of a bad boy type, and the third projecting a kind of boyish "moe" vibe. Let's start with the last, for the super-cute character "Honey" from the anime Ouran High School Host Club is the perfect example. Skipping to the first, Patrick Macias provides two recent examples of how big an influence Ernest Hemingway's posthumous The Garden of Eden has had on female and male hostess/host culture in Japan. It's a little harder to find good examples of the sexier, wilder chara-o look, and Daisuke Takahashi doesn't usually sport it, but this image is what the Full Metal Archivist settled on after a while.

So there you have it. Maybe now you can understand what the Full Metal Archivist means when she sums me up as a "soshoku-kei shoujo manga otomen with no domestic skill." Yay! Happy New year, everyone!

Dai-chan Did It! Your Turn Now, Ai-sama!!

Despite flying across the country to Portland, OR, The Full Metal Archivist didn't turn out to be all that much in the inspiration department for Daisuke Takahashi at Skate America, as he got outskated in the short program by rival Nobunari Oda--



--and just, as she put it, "choked 3 jumps" in the free skate, but she was one heck of a good luck charm, after all, as he still got the gold--by less than a point! Guess it makes up for him getting jobbed by the judges at Skate Canada outside Toronto last year when the entire Constructivist family could afford to make the trip together.

No way I'm headed to Guadalajara to support Ai Miyazato in person today at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, but I'm hoping she realizes she still has a great shot at winning, even if she isn't playing at her absolute best! Gambatte, Ai-sama. How about you show Dai-chan how to finish off a win with style?

[Update 1 (1:20 am): Here's Oda's short program:



Cleaner program and great music, but just not as interesting or expressive a skater as Dai-chan, no? You be the judge!]

[Update 2 (1:36 am): That was quick:



Way to go, Russian TV!]

[Update 3 (2:50 am): The FMA just texted me: "Got 2 autog. of daisuke. Such nice guy. took extra time 4 fans." Mama's bringing home some cool gifts for onechan and imoto. Too bad she'll miss seeing them skate tomorrow at the Fredonia rink!]

[Update 4 (6:44 am): From reading Backstage Barbie's post, it seems like Oda screwed up worse than Dai-chan.]

Welcome, Crooked Timberers

If you've recently come to Mostly Harmless via this Australian election update, please feel free to hang out, relax, check out the archives. For more from your guide, JP Stormcrow, you can go here or here, or just check out our "politics" tag. Which takes me back to the early days of this here experiment in interwebitudinal fun, back when this blog mattered made a difference was often funny based in Japan, before it became all LPGA and stories for kids all the time. You can tell how much things have changed here when, upon checking out our most recent slew (for us) of visitors and composing this piece, the following associations rattled through what's left of my brain: "Has Berube finally returned to golf blogging? Crooked Timber--now there's a great name for a golf blog! How can I get a joke about a mashie in a post on this? Is a mashie even made of wood? Or is that a niblick? Heh, niblick. Australian politics...hmm, I wonder if Karrie Webb reads Crooked Timber? Bet she's glad the 2007 season is over. Hey, isn't Amy Yang playing out of Australia these days? Wouldn't it be cool if she did well in Q-School? Now there's a kid with a good head on her shoulders. Ah, kids. Time to check on onechan and imoto." The end.

Friday's Footprint?

Asian Swing

Japan:





China:





Korea:

And by "Bamboo," I Meant...

Not for your scores to soar like the heroes and villains of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. More like your spirits, or something like that.

Minea Blomqvist got it--her 31 on the back vaulted her into the top 40 heading into the weekend of the Longs Drugs Challenge and gives her a great shot to keep her card for 2008. Paula Creamer got it--she was +5 with 5 holes to go, but birdied three of them to get into the top 50. And Maria Hjorth certainly got it--despite taking a quadruple bogey late in her first round, she bounced back into the top 15 with a 69 on Friday. Even Morgan Pressel's two bogeys down the home stretch to drop her to +5 minimized the damage enough that she squeaked past her second consecutive cut line.

But two of my favorites just didn't get it. Mi Hyun Kim got the doubles early on and WDed. And Ai Miyazato was done in by an early double and two late ones. She started off with birdies on 2 of her first 3 holes, but then a double and two bogeys put her at +7 with the tougher front 9 left to play. After gutting out a bunch of pars and a birdie, she was right at the cut line with 3 holes to play when disaster struck. The dreaded double double.

At least they get to rest for the Samsung World Championship. Unlike Annika Sorenstam, who just declined the sponsor's invitation to join the 20-player elite field. There are various ways of interpreting Sorenstam's decision--doing the right thing (by taking a stand against last-second entrance criteria changes), showing up Michelle Wie (who WDed from Annika's tournament under strange, and to many suspicious, circumstances earlier this year and who has come under loads of criticism for accepting the sponsor's invitation that was given out in the spring), setting an example for Wie--but my read is that she just doesn't feel that her body and her game are up to beating Lorena Ochoa. She wants to take her on on her own schedule, not Samsung's.

And given that Ochoa is sitting pretty at the Longs Drugs--1 shot behind leaders Lorie Kane and Karrie Webb and 1 shot ahead of Se Ri Pak, Juli Inkster, and Suzann Pettersen, not to mention the 22 other players within 5 shots of her on a course where anything can happen--maybe Sorenstam is right to defer such a challenge until the 2008 season.

At least she has that option. Virada Nirapathpongporn needed a great round on Friday just to make the cut and couldn't produce one. Katie Futcher lucked in on the cut line but needs to move in the opposite direction on the weekend if she wants to avoid joining her fellow Super Soph at the final stage of Q-School. We'll see if Shigeki Maruyama can do the same in Texas. He's fallen back to 6th place and although he has a little more time to claw his way back into the top 125 on the PGA money list and secure his card for 2008, playing more like he did on the front than the back Friday over the weekend would do him a world of good.

This One's for Uncle Bill

Onechan's favorite video on teh youtubes lately is the one she calls the "funny Powerpuff cartoon." It's the one in Portuguese I added to my old post on the rainy season a few days ago when I realized the copyright hawks had blocked the English version. And it's the one she was clamoring for in the first comment on Uncle Bill's latest Sparkychan and Gojochan Adventure, Onechan's Choice. So after dinner tonight I was on my own with the girls and of course I showed them that video. (I needed a distraction from onechan's envy of imoto's new pull-ups--apparently, she wanted the "shippo" [tail] on the back, that plastic adhesive strip you can use to seal up the dirty diaper--and snipping the shippo off and sticking it to the back of onechan's undie wasn't doing the trick, especially when imoto was trying to rip it off!)

Afterwards I wanted to get them in the tub and get them to sleep before the tsuma returned home from reading manga at BookOff, but they were pretty revved up. So I had the brilliant idea of showing "Down'n'Dirty," one of my favorite episodes--in Portuguese, of course.



Little did I realize when I first clicked on the link that Gojira would not only make an appearance at the end, but also would be the only thing that convinced Buttercup she needed to finally take a bath--not getting kicked out of her home, school, or city for stinking up the joint, but not being allowed to do what she loves best, fighting monsters, did the trick. The voice actor for Gojira in this version isn't as god as the one in English--or the one from the rainy day cosuplay episode when Buttercup dresses up as Miss Bellum--but it was good enough for us this evening.

Even though onechan got a bit more scared during the episode than I expected, she totally got the point at the end and rushed to the tub. Of course imoto followed her. While in the tub we had a huge discussion about whether imoto should be Buttercup (because she can be rough, like Kuromi), onechan should be Bubbles (because she's sweet like My Melody and cries a lot), mama should be Blossom (because she's the commander and the leader, of course), and I should be the Professor (duh!)--or whether imoto should be Blossom (because she can be stubborn and bossy), onechan should be Bubbles (because she's the joy and the laughter), I should be Buttercup (because I am the toughest fighter, in the family, that is, at least when play fighting with the girls and their cousins [all under 5!]), and mama should be Miss Bellum (because she's so smart and pretty)--but eventually got around to getting soaped up, rinsed off, dried off, and in pajamas. That's when the trouble began.

Imoto is used to falling asleep next to the tsuma after (or while) breastfeeding and this would be something like the, oh, second night in her life it wasn't going to be that way. She was happy biting the bottle I gave her for awhile, but eventually she got bored with that and started looking around for mama. When she couldn't find her, she cried and cried. I wasn't sure what to do beyond letting her tire herself out, but then I remembered two things: 1) how she had giggled her head off right after the tsuma headed out when onechan did a cute little silly song and dance number for her, and 2) how much she likes it when I hold her and sing her a song I made up for onechan (to the tune of Frere Jacques):

Atsui, samui
Atsui, samui
Daijo bu
Daijo bu
Kawaeeko [onechan]
Kawaeeko [imoto]
Eeko-chan
Eeko-chan

It's a bath song, actually--first the water is too hot, then too cold, then ok. The second half is about how onechan and imoto are "cute and good girls" (kawaeeko combines kawaii and eeko) and "good girls." Onechan liked it when I threw in "Arigato [onechan]/Arigato [imoto]..." and other variations (although I never thought of "Kimochee" [feels good for "Daijo bu"--next time), but imoto kind of looked up at me like, "What are you doing, dad?" After a few such dirty looks, I kept to the canonical version. And after only about a hundred reps, both girls were out. Piece of cake! I could do this every night.

Looking Ahead: The Next 25 Years

OK, over at Citizen of Somewhere Else I summed up the history of U.S. representations of Japan that I actually was able to deliver yesterday at the JASF (thanks, Gojira!). So here's how the talk ended (in plenty of time for Q&A, I might add--I'll blog the questions tomorrow at CitizenSE).

What does it mean for the future that Hello Kitty, Pikachu, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Naruto represent Japan for American kids today? Or that slightly older kids first encountered Japanese culture through Power Rangers, Sailor Moon, Final Fantasy, or The Legend of Zelda? One thing it means is that even greater proportions of Americans in the next 25 years are likely to have positive associations with Japan, due in part to their immersive, interactive, multi-vector leisure experiences made possible by Japanese technology. I’m not denying that the youngest of these younger generations have probably been almost as oblivious, selective, and subjective in their engagements with Japanese culture as I was in the 1980s, or that their understanding of the actual Japan has probably been as limited as mine was before I started visiting and researching it around 2003. And they certainly will be influenced by future political and economic shifts and shocks. But I want to suggest that these generations will be a lot less easy for anyone to manipulate than American publics were in the 1940s and 1980s. The odds of military or economic conflict between the U.S. and Japan seem increasingly long over the next 25 years as a result.

It’s not just that “American otaku,” as some in these subcultures identify themselves with pride, are likely to become an even more influential part of the cultural mainstream in the U.S. in coming years. It’s also that problems the younger generations of the U.S. will have to face up to--stemming from the globalization of capitalism and climate change, and including peak oil and alternate energy sources, food production and distribution, demographic shifts, and a host of social issues associated with access, equity, and risk management--are associated in many Americans’ minds with Japanese efforts to solve them. The image of a green Japan may prove to be the most potent representation of Japan in the U.S. in the coming decades.

That is, I think we can expect to see a shift from largely cultural appreciations--of “beautiful Japan” (kawaii culture, Miss Universe, youth fashion, animation culture), of “cutting-edge Japan” (information and entertainment technology, robotics, social dynamics), of “weird Japan” (just do a google search on this phrase to see what I mean!)--to political reappraisals of Japan in the U.S. Part of this will be fueled by regional realignments as crises like North Korean nuclear ambitions force East Asian powers to renegotiate their security policies (not to mention their understandings of each other’s histories) and as the growing importance of intraregional trade forces Asian tigers to learn to grow together (rather than primarily relying on exports to the U.S. and Europe). And part of this will be fueled by a shift in American political culture from Republican-led efforts to orient a new Cold War against radical Islam or China to Democrat-led efforts to head off, mitigate, or recover from global crises and their repercussions for the U.S.

It’s possible, of course, that the U.S. will turn out to have learned the wrong lessons from the twentieth century. It’s possible that Iraq will become Imperial America’s Korea, Iran its Manchukuo, and Saudi Arabia its China--and that Japan will someday face the choice of when and how to break off an alliance with such a dangerous and destabilizing partner. By the same token, it’s possible that Japanese political culture will accelerate its rightward shift and intensify Asian rivalries so much that the U.S. would be forced to distance itself from an embarrassing and erratic ally. But it’s much more likely, I believe, that even U.S. political and military leaders will find much to learn from the post-W.W. II transformations of Japan in the near future. And that liberals in both countries can encourage their fellow citizens to reexamine their own countries’ colonialist and militarist pasts and shift their nations’ priorities to focusing on solving problems of the near- and mid-future.

So my projections for the next 25 years of U.S.-Japanese representations and interactions are surprisingly, if guardedly, optimistic. I’m curious to hear what yours are. Thank you for your time and attention. I’d be glad to respond to any questions or comments you wish to share with me.

[Update 7/25/07: The Onion does a hilarious riff on the Japan=future theme!

You Hate It! You Really Hate It!

It doesn't take much to generate some guesses as to the reasons for the deafening silence meeting this inaugural Take Your Blog to the Course carnival--besides the fact that no one reads this blog and I haven't had time to drop many bread crumbs at blogs people do read. While the purpose of TYBttC is no doubt laudable--to draw attention to women's professional golf by encouraging those who don't normally golf blog to try blogging the U.S. Women's Open between 6/25 and 7/1--I can see why people may have political, aesthetic, and personal reasons for not taking part in it. I'll run these down in hopes of inspiring at least one "Why I Hate/Don't Care About Golf" post from someone.

Political: Let's face it, golf's image--and far too often, its reality--sucks. The sport seems to be associated in most people's minds with the worst kinds of privileges/exclusions--by class/race/gender/religion, for a start. When most people think "golf," they think country clubs and corporate outings. They think of the backlash against Martha Burk's quixotic quest to put pressure on Augusta to admit a female member. They think of all the jokes about how the LPGA was the lesbian's professional golf association and of all the efforts since those jokes started to promote women's golf through pinup girls and moms. They remember how difficult it was for Karrie Webb when she was outed. Or how the "yellow peril" never seems to be far from people's minds when they talk about how many South Korean golfers there are on the LPGA.

Aesthetic: "Golf's not a sport," people who never tried to play it say. "It's less interesting to watch than wet paint," others add. "And the clothes--don't get me started!" chime in the fashionistas. "Ojin ksai!" the tsuma agrees. "I just can't understand why you're into golf," even my most sympathetic friends confess, "much less blog about it so often."

Personal: Maybe there's a trauma in your past--an accident with a golf cart, getting hit by a golf ball, or, as in the tsuma's case, damaging your front teeth as a six-year-old when trying to hit a golf ball with an iron too big for you. Or maybe someone in your life--a dad, a boyfriend--got obsessed/addicted and you feel it poisoned your relationship or stressed your mom out.

So what's your excuse for not taking your blog to the course this week? Even if you don't have a blog, feel free to leave a comment here or email me at the[underscore]constructivist18[at]yahoo[dot]com!

What Passed for a Train of "Thought" Yesterday Morning

So I was looking in the bathroom mirror, wondering if I should shave, when it occurred to me that Derrida's "always already" takes up the omniscient temporality of the Puritans' God's p.o.v. I wonder how Derrida would have changed the title of Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Maybe through a Lacan-like "God is structured like a language" move? Nah, that's more Zizek territory--his critique of Derrida would no doubt be entitled "Sinners in the Hands of an Indifferent God." Which made me think of the way little kids act up when their parents are tuning them out--what if humanity was "going through a phase" trying to get God's attention? That made me think of Simmons's Hyperion and his variations on the Abraham/Isaac story, which lead me to Nietzsche's notion of the death of God, which helped me decide that humanity was like a teenager who was in denial that his parents had died and was acting out in order to force them to deal with him. Hey, this would be a neat Mostly Harmless blog post! Or CitizenSE? Nah, not Hawthorne-y enough. Oh no! It's already 8 am and I still haven't even looked up LPGA.com to confirm that Ochoa won the Ginn Tribute. How could I have slept in so late? Oh yeah, all that coughing that kept me up half the night. Will barely have time to write the LPGA post today--the free association one can wait till tomorrow. So can shaving. Let's hope I remember to do both tomorrow.