Saturday, October 6, 2012

Gyaru, Globalization and the "Cool Japan" campaign

Speaking of ways to relax from studying...

My first post is going to be a paper that I have to submit tomorrow. I'm not posting it because of my divine academic writing skills but because I think it's a very interesting subject that has not been suggested much before..
Actually since 2005 when I first went to Japan (I went there to study Japanese and Kendo, my absolutely favourite thing in Japan ) I was so intrigued by the Bihaku Gyaru, the Ganguro and Yamamba, that I even wrote in a university essay (it was Kokusai Budo Daigaku that I was attending then) that one of my favorite things about Japan was the Gyaru trend, (when asked about our favorite things, obviously). While writing this paper now, I was thinking how great it'd be if it was actually promoted by MOFA's (Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs) "Cool Japan" foreign policy campaign (the one that promoted Anime, Manga etc in various countries)and I planned on suggesting it on the conclusion but then I read on one BBC article that it is indeed scheduled to be promoted in this campaign by 2020. Anybody knows more about it? I didn't have time to look into it much further, actually.

So, before my paper, if someone wants to know more about it, this is a very good source:

http://neojaponisme.com/2012/02/28/the-history-of-the-gyaru-part-one/ (there are parts 1-4 but part 4 is still not published. Looking forward to it! Very good history of the Gyaru culture in general)

there is also a BBC documentary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPYLUyGR7Ms and countless videos on YouTube.

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