The Only Good Ganguro is a Dead Ganguro

Originally run on 3 November 2008.

There’s a lot of pretty great stuff about Japan—ramen, Akira Kurosawa, ninja, robots and the elderly, but there’s also an ugly underside to the Land of the Rising Sun. No, I’m not talking about cheap anime, tentacle porn, the Rape of Nanking or one of the highest suicide rate in the industrialized world, I’m talking about some of the less obvious things that haunt the neon streets of old Yamato. Specifically, I’m talking about this horrible thing the kids have deemed the “ganguro.”

The origin of the word ganguro apparently comes from the Japanese word for “blackface,” so it’s good to know that racist stereotyping isn’t isolated to our half of the globe. The fashion consists of what I assume are color-blind female youths tanning their skin into Oompa-Loompa hues and bleaching their hair into nuclear whites. It is one of the uglier things I’ve seen people inflict on themselves and I’ve seen the BME Pain Olympics. Apparently this fashion was sort of developed as a direct challenge to traditional Japanese beauty, where women are supposed to be small, quiet and pale (Scientifically, it appears that ganguro style is as far away from the geisha as possible without segueing into another species). Luckily this questionable chic that started in the 90’s has been tapering off in popularity ever since the dawn of the new millennium. My guess is that one of these girls ended up looking in the mirror.

You could probably make an argument about me being some racist, misogynist imperialist, but come on—Look at these broads. Tell me with a straight face that there’s anything about that picture that could be considered a good idea. Unless, of course, you’re desperate for a Halloween costume.

Image from the foulest pits of hell and Google.