FEATURE Hello Kitty.indd
ZERO
FEATURE
EROPURI
EXPLOITATION OR SEXUAL
REBELLION? ANDREW LEE
INVESTIGATES THE PLAYFUL
WORLD OF JAPANESE
EROPURI – WHERE GIRLS
RULE AND BOYS MOST
DEFINITELY DROOL.
IF YOU SHOULD FIND YOURSELF IN TOKYO
any time soon make sure you spend time
browsing magazines at one of the big bookstores.
In the section for teenage girls you’ll find titles
such as Smart Girls and Egg and in the back
of these, you’ll be confronted with a strange
phenomenon: snapshots of young women
topless, naked and simulating sex, which the
girls themselves have taken and submitted for
publication – not, as you might expect, for the
consumption of dirty old men, but for other girls.
This type of photo is part of a trend known as
eropuri, and while it may at first look like porn,
it is in fact the latest manifestation of a very
Japanese kind of women’s liberation.
The trend can be traced back to the mid-
1990s, when a new tribe of provocatively dressed
schoolgirls arrived on the scene in Tokyo’s
Shibuya shopping precinct, and sent a ripple of
consternation through Japanese society.
Wearing exaggerated makeup and bleached hair,
these so-called kogyaru took their name from the
street slang for school (kosei) and girl (gyaru).
They rolled their school skirts up to show more
thigh, and let loose socks bunch around their
ankles like leg-warmers to make their legs appear
longer. They were obnoxious, confident, loud and
very proud of the way they looked – which was not
how Japanese girls were meant to act at all.
Their behaviour broke all the rules of the
Confucian system on which Japan’s patriarchal
I SHOT MYSELF
society is based. This traditional code of conduct
A SHOOT FROM AN
ISSUE OF SMART
enforces the concealment of feelings and a strict
GIRLS MAGAZINE. ITS
RAUNCHY CONTENT
sense of decorum. Saving face is everything.
HAS BEEN PRODUCED
BY A READERSHIP OF
Traditionally, Japanese women are meant to be
FEMALE YOUNG ADULTS.
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FEATURE
000
EROPURI
subservient and modest; they should be obedient,
An essential accessory for the kogyaru was
AROUND THIS TIME, 29-YEAR-OLD MIHO SASAKI
flashing their breasts and acting out sex in the
society hungry for nudie shots of teenagers. The
The fact that the products of girl culture, such
demure and they should respect the authority of
a camera. Soon, young female photographers
suggested an idea to her bosses at the Atlus
photo booths. But as Popteen’s editor Chisako
reality, however, is far more complex. Japanese
as eropuri, are continually appropriated by the
older males. Men in turn are obliged to respect
came to public attention when they won highly
games company that could take advantage of the
Wada said in a weekly tabloid at the time, “Today’s
girls are constantly bombarded with conflicting
patriarchal media, only makes the girls’ constant
those who rank higher than them in society. In
publicised emerging artist awards with snapshots
photo-diary craze. Noticing the mad passion high
teenage girls are pretty light-hearted. They
messages. On one hand they are told to be
reinvention of themselves more fascinating.
former times this meant the Emperor; these days
of the girl-dominated world in which they lived.
school girls had for both photography and sticker
Japanese men are being forced to keep up, but
it means the company boss.
Label ed, somewhat condescendingly, the onnanoko
col ecting, Sasaki suggested the two could be
are failing miserably.
For Japanese men, the company comes first.
no shashinka (girlie photographers), their work soon
combined into a new kind of game machine.
Much has been written recently about the
“Today’s teenage girls show their eropuri amongst each
They commonly work 16 hours a day, six days a
became extremely popular with high school girls who
In 1995 the first “Print Club” (purikura) machine
growing chasm between the sexes in Japan. Men
other and have absolutely no qualms about showing off
week. This keeps them away from their families,
could identify with these images of their lifestyle.
appeared in Tokyo. The brightly coloured photo-
there are stuck in a rut – expected to uphold their
their naked bodies. Showing eropuri is one way girls use
but it is a man’s duty to work without complaint
They also garnered the attention of the art
booths take your photo, juxtapose your face
duty to the company and country – while women
to prove they’re friends.”
and a woman’s to be a good wife and wise mother.
world. In 1993, 20-year-old Yurie Nagashima
among cartoon characters or exotic backgrounds
are taking control of their lives, refusing to get
Children are expected to spend their years at
won the Parco Prize with a series of very frank
then print the image on sheets of cute little
married and have kids if it means living the way
school preparing for these roles.
photos of herself posing nude with her family. She
stickers. Only a year after their launch, Atlus’
show their eropuri amongst each other and have
demure, maidenly and chaste – thereby fulfilling
their parents did. They refuse to be passive and
The kogyaru stood in defiance of this. These
followed this in 1995 with a book of “self-nudes”
purikura machines made up 70 percent of the
absolutely no qualms about showing off their
their role in the Confucianist system – and on
demure, yet they can see how tough life is for men
young women had grown up seeing the tough lives
and was soon credited with starting a boom in
company’s sales.
naked bodies. Showing eropuri is one way girls use
the other they are encouraged to be as sexy
and sure as hell don’t want that kind of equality.
their parents were leading and wanted no part of
photography among young women. The kogyaru in
Purikura has since gone through several waves
to prove they’re friends.” In other words, this was
and cute as they can possibly be. It’s a Catch-22,
While young men are increasingly subject to the
it. Author Nicholas Bornoff, who has written much
particular were quick to pick up on the craze. One
of innovation, as have the ways girls use the
being done for their own pleasure.
so their reaction has been to caricature both
otaku phenomenon – becoming more and more
on the subject of sexuality in Japan, writes (in a
such girl was a 17 year old calling herself Hiromix
machines. At first they were happy to simply
Laura Mil er has studied the phenomenon and
messages and have fun while doing it. Often the
isolated – the girls are out enjoying themselves,
2002 essay) that “to Japanese women, the fight
(Hiromi Toshikawa), who was the next of the “girlie
be kawaii (cute) in front of the camera, smiling
suggests that eropuri is something the previous
shots deliberately parody the type of images that
creating trends such as eropuri.
for liberation and equality doesn’t involve male
photographers” to make it big.
and flashing the peace sign. But as time passed
generation of Japanese women would have been
appear in men’s magazines. Says Miller: “Eropuri
emulation: penis envy isn’t on the agenda. Rather
Hiromix was chosen by renowned Japanese
they started to add graffiti to personalise the
too embarrassed to dabble in. “The idea of taking
mock the very visual codes that have been used to
young girls just wanna have fun. The trashing of
photographer Nobuyoshi Araki as the winner of
stickers. Purikura manufacturers noticed this and
photos of themselves in revealing poses would have
objectify them.”
the Confucianist ideal of woman as demure and
the New Cosmos of Photography award in 1995
added options to the machines that would enable
been unthinkable,” she says. But eropuri enthusiasts
submissive is one of the essentials of Japanese
with her diary of colour photocopies entitled
girls to scribble their own messages on screen
“show an astonishing lack of anxiety about social
feminism.”
Seventeen Girl Days, a peek into the private world
before pressing the print button.
censure of their naughty posing and risqué words.
This is exactly what the kogyaru were doing
of a high school girl. Alongside everyday scenes
Then things started to get altogether spicier.
The eyes of society, so effective in keeping their
and their arrival was as shocking in Japan as
such as friends playing, plates of half-eaten food
Print Club arcades installed full-length machines
mothers in line, are of no consequence to them.”
punk was in Britain. As anthropologist Laura
and her pet cat were more self-nudes. Taken in
and supplied costumes for the girls to dress up
These photos, Mil er says, are “not simply individual
Miller has noted (in US-Japan Women’s Journal),
front of a mirror, these portraits were a personal
in. Boys were actually banned from many of these
acts of deviance, but are a manifestation of general
when the kogyaru appeared on the streets of
document of a girl’s narcissistic pleasure in her
arcades, so girls had the privacy to do whatever
dissent among girls, who have little desire to fol ow
Tokyo the Japanese media began to exhibit “an
own beauty.
they liked without male interference. When the fun
in their mothers’ footsteps.”
odd mixture of mass anxiety and voyeuristic
Hiromix and her contemporaries were breaking
of dressing up in nurse uniforms or cheongsams
It could be argued that these girls are simply
interest”. Generally focusing on the more negative
the rules of Confucianism: these kind of images
wore off some girls ditched the costumes – and
playing into the hands of a male-dominated
aspects of kogyaru, such as their supposed sexual
were meant to be kept private. But Hiromix was
eropuri (erotic print club) was born.
promiscuity and the phenomenon of enjo-kosai (or
suggesting that there was more to life than being
Because girls had long been sending their
“compensated dating”), the media helped fuel the
cute and submissive. In an interview with The
purikura into the readers’ pages of teen
fad. One of the traits that particularly irked the
New Yorker magazine in 2002 she said “almost
magazines it was here that eropuri first began
general public was how narcissistic and selfish
all Japanese men suffer from a Lolita complex
to be noticed as a trend. In September 2003 the
the kogyaru were. Many could not understand why
[lolicom] … Japanese guys are threatened by
magazine Popteen ran a special issue devoted to
these girls were not ashamed to be shirking their
capable women, and would like them to be a little
eropuri. Its pages showed examples of purikura
social responsibilities.
more stupid.”
stickers sent in by readers who were naked,
MEMOIRS OF A
KOGYARU (LEFT TO
RIGHT) READERS’
EROPURI FROM AN
ISSUE OF POPTEEN;
EGG MAGAZINE; AND
SPREADS FROM
VARIOUS ISSUES OF
SMART GIRLS.
