What I've Been Into Recently; Reiwa Fashion Frustrations, Magazine Purchases, and Tons of Other Nostalgia

I mentioned in my last post how I've been super sick. Honestly, I'm crazy bummed out because I really had wanted to do some fun things over the Thanksgiving holiday but I suppose there always is Christmas. I totally lost my voice and my family has me quarantined in my room and it's been about a week and a day (not COVID, they just really don't want to get THIS SICK and for THIS LONG) so I've just been binging J-Dramas since I've stayed to myself and can't physically talk.

Risa recommended "Tomorrow I'll be Somebody's Girlfriend" which I decided to check out. I love a good josei and went as far as binging the manga it's based off of too. It's very modern about rental girlfriends and the environment of nightlife work in Tokyo in the Reiwa era. 

The usage of social media and the change in fashion from the point of someone who is still stuck loving Heisei gyaru really intrigued me. I feel like so much of things are based on men or being cute/pretty for the male gaze. So much of this drama frustrated me in that sense. I wanted the characters to value themselves more as women. Yes dating and needing love to "improve" yourself might have lead to confidence but I feel like love shouldn't be needed to find that type of confidence. I think that's really what frustrated me. I didn't hate this series but it certainly made me think about how vastly the mindset around being feminine and what for has changed and even how it has affected Reiwa Gyaru...

Not that gyaru weren't conscious of dating and the male gaze but I also felt like gyaru dressed for themselves. It wasn't being cute or pretty for the sake of love. They already long were gals beforehand and wanted to be impressive to their friends. There's just something about gyaru that usually goes into two categories. You have fun and sexy and then you have sexy and glamorous..and then cute/fun/glamorous. In all, gals always wanted a look that made people's heads turn and go, "I want to get to know that girl. I want to be friends with her. I want to date her." without a gyaru even intending for that attention. There was that desire to be the best version of yourself without someone else needing to change it. 

However, I do feel like as gyaru date or settle down, they try to change into their partner's ideal type sometimes, and change their whole aesthetic when honestly, they should just be accepted as they were. If you started dating a gyaru, then you fell in love with a gal, and should remain to know you'll be doing so and support it if that is what makes your partner happy. As someone hilariously wise once said, "This ain't build a bitch workshop" and that applies here. 

I feel like it's definitely affected how gyaru is now... 

I will say, the most recent Egg cover for winter 22/23 SUPER appeals to me. I actually love this cover but I'm wary about the contents inside of Egg because it's not the same magazine it used to be, I feel like the gals are being pushed into rapper/idol careers rather than actual charisma gals. I really wish they'd leave the music stuff to Avex and just collab with them/have the models make special appearances. I much rather see Kirei or Erika produce intricate clothing lines or see them in more makeup ads than "reality" TV shows and in cringe music videos. Let the gals be models. Let them slay Tokyo Girls Collection. Focus on pushing clothing/bring back brand loyalty so we can stop relying on Shein for dupes. -facepalms- Because I'd support boutique brands if they existed and didn't look and feel like they're coming from the same factories as AliExpress and Shein. 

Regardless of that, I MIGHT purchase the Fall/Winer Egg issue just because the covers actually look fucking good this time and I haven't seen a worthwhile cover in a hot fucking minute. Scared about the insides though! 

Anyway, outside of that, I've been doing a lot of shopping. I call it "stress shopping" because I window shop a lot when I get stressed or upset. But honestly, the more I buy and have, the pickier I'm becoming with my purchases. I bought a few magazines that are coming in soonish. I'm really excited for them. I have one Ageha set that I'm really looking forward to finally owning. Though, another fixation for me right now is very early 2000 Popteen. When I mean early 2000, I mean 2000, 2001, 2002. Maybe a little 2003 but there's something insanely fun and unique about the super early 2000s Popteen issues. I really enjoyed the issue I bought recently with Hiroko Anzai on the cover, so I bought more. 

I shared a picture of one of the issues I purchased on Instagram. It's a September 2001 issue, and people lost their fucking mind over the cover. It's such a fun, vibrant cover, and not what a lot of gaijin gyaru associate with Popteen. I'm kind of determined to change the mindset around Popteen. I know it had its himekaji era which a lot of the new kids or old-school enthusiasts don't deem as "gyaru enough" which is like...fighting words to me given how fucking icons were produced for that magazine during that time frame...but I get it. It's not for everyone, but there was an era before that himekaji boom that was more "in line" with what people saw as gyaru that I don't really see covered as much. 

I very vaguely remember seeing bits and pieces of the last bits of the early 00s in Japanese media when I first moved to California. I don't know how to explain how in the fuck I did. Lots of Chinese markets that had Chinese versions of Popteen at one point (yes that was a thing)...before I was going to San Francisco on my own to hit up Kinokuniya in Japan Town, I was often visiting Chinese supermarkets with whole ass bookstores inside of the front of them. Oddly they'd have a ton of manga and fashion magazines that were from Japan, but translated into Chinese. If anything, that was my first exposure to gyaru magazines in a very weird way. It's not something I thought about until recently flipping through this old-ass Popteen and realizing that that time in my life wasn't a fever dream. 

A lot of fashion trends overlap between many countries but flipping through my one 2001 issue so far, I felt really nostalgic. I was a pre-teen in that era but some of these trends I vividly remember being big in the US as well and the trends that weren't, I'd see Japanese celebs wear in some of the dramas I used to watch or the clothes emulated in early 00s manga. You'd see bits and pieces. It's hard to explain. 

Speaking of nostalgia and feeling old. someone uploaded a lot of old PopJapanTV episodes onto YouTube. I almost cried. Maybe I'm looking back at a lot of old media as a trauma response given all what's gone on, but man... Seeing these old episodes made me feel some type of way. Some people had the late-night VH1 music video countdowns, MTV's TRL... I had PopJapanTV. 

I think the first J-Pop/Rock I got into was accidentally bands like Guitar Vader thanks to Jet Set Radio, Do as Infinity, and The Pillows thanks to FLCL/InuYasha back when I lived in Tennessee. I also unknowingly was getting into TM Revolution's old 90s discography around that time without much knowledge about his newer things (that would blow my mind later on thanks to PopJapanTV) and old Globe and Ayumi Hamasaki songs-which was crazy given how I had no idea how iconic Globe and Ayu really were. 

Mind you, I had dial-up internet still, YouTube wasn't a thing yet, and so I couldn't just up and watch music videos or download music without it taking an entire day on one family computer that I shared with the rest of my family as a kid. It wasn't until I moved to California that I really got my first taste of that music thanks to PopJapanTV. I finally had faces to put with voices too as I started discovering Namie Amuro thanks to the manga Ayashi no Ceres mentioning her and figuring out that she too, was involved in InuYasha's soundtrack. 

I remember as I turned 13, having to decide if I was watching Adult Swim on Saturday night or if I was watching PopJapanTV instead. It got to the point where the music videos were winning out. I rather watch the people who made the music for the endings and openings rather than the animes. It kind of lowkey changed my life. I still obviously liked anime and eventually had better internet and watched a lot of shit fansubbed. But before those times, music videos from different countries really intrigued me. 

Watching as a 31 year old, it made me a little teary-eyed. The fashion in some of the episodes with the hosts is so fun and the music that is featured in the episodes so diverse. A lot of PopJapanTV was Sony-signed artists but man...so many of these groups and artists were iconic. Many are often featured in gyaru magazines that I've picked up since. I got into Crystal Kay, Chemistry, Sowelu, Zone, and Nami Tamaki thanks to that program. Eventually, I'd also come to watch NHK during the Christmas/New Year holidays and would be fixated on Kohaku Uta Gassen which would be like...a long-ass music show to ring in the New Year. I vividly remember hearing Koda Kumi belt, "Ai no Uta" in high school and finding out about Nakanomori Band through that program...and being excited seeing w-inds perform live. 

Anyway, here's an episode of PopJapanTV featuring Crystal Kay if you want to feel old or even time travel a little bit if you're a youngin that wasn't able to participate in this fun little era of time. These episodes always left such a huge impression on me and live in my mind til this day, rent free. 

Anyway, that's all for today's post! See ya'll soon hopefully!

Blog Revival? Maybe? What's all been happening so far...

 It's been long a while since I have updated here, and I doubt anyone really checks my blog here so much..or at least not to the extent of YouTube and TikTok. But hi, hello. I'm alive. I think I'm just desiring to somehow make content even on extremely low energy, So much has happened since I last updated this thing, so let me catch you up shall I? 

Almost a year ago, I successfully graduated from university. Surprisingly in the top fifteen percentile. I was so relieved to be finished with my studies given that I felt like I was taking so long. x_x I really shifted my entire lifestyle since then. 

Starting in January, I worked on an extra certificate to add to my bachelor's degree while job hunting. My certificate took a month and a half but job hunting too me so much longer. I think it took me a good nine months of job hunting and living off of my savings. I was extremely blessed that I was able to float for those nine months and not be in dire straights. It definitely sent me into this huge spiral of depression for a bit as I applied to 60 different places with no bite. I wondered if I was a failure despite succeeding academically. I felt like nothing was going fast enough. 

Took take my mind off of those negative feelings, I decided to throw my free time into social media when I wasn't job hunting. I was really shocked at how well my videos were rapidly doing. My YouTube was steadily growing and once I relaunched my TikTok with the theme of Gyaru Fashion History/J-Pop Culture content, my socials did better than they ever had. Not to the extent of other content creators but I was still very thankful and shocked. I have been making gyaru content since 2012, and nothing really took off until a year and a half ago once there was a rapid gyaru boom post-pandemic. 

Of course, I expressed a lot of opinions that people disagreed with on everything from gyaru, the community, and perhaps even people-given how I noticed how it was taking a toll on gyaru as a whole. It certainly took a toll on the community to where I feel like...the community isn't really an actual community anymore? How can you be a community when you're so separated right? When there is no such thing as togetherness and a lot of people are too afraid to engage with others or integrate into the community. People who claim to be a community aren't and I refuse to be dictated and be told I'm not welcome in the so-called "community" by people who newly arrived in on the scene with their army of 13 year old TikTok fans just because they disagree with me on topics and because I'm friends with people they don't like..  It just seems all exhausting and I was really irritated by it all. New and old people alike are just fed up with that energy and a lot of us have definitely kept to ourselves and it is a bit melancholy. In a way, it's kept the peace but it's sad not seeing people become friends and exchanging ideas/inspo with each other out of being afraid over who you can and cannot trust in a bigger sense. 

I've certainly been less social since but it was peaceful given how chaotic things were on my end but a lot more happened that made me take a step back. 

Unfortunately during the chaos, I had finally scored my first big girl job, but literally the day of my job offer, my mother who had been severely ill was instantly hospitalized. So for a good two to almost three months, I worked my job and on weekends was visiting her in the hospital. It was as physically exhausting to have to feel like I was two different people all the time. At my job, I couldn't be sad and had to remain present, which was probably for the best given that if I wasn't kept busy, I worried a lot. 

My birthday passed and it was the first time I didn't dress up or really celebrate. It was the first time I didn't hear from my mother at all on a birthday which made things really odd. My mom was a stay-at-home wife, so suddenly our house felt very empty. I often came back to a dark living room or left without anyone to say bye to. It was really hard to have that silence. Even when I had attended university and stayed in the dorms alone during COVID, I still checked in with my family occasionally and the environment didn't feel so grim.

I tried to keep as optimistic as I could in my emotionally fatigued state and even tried to squeeze a few gyaru looks in where I could because I really just hadn't felt like myself in the longest time. Gyaru truly felt like a battle armor around that time and I tried to occupy myself as much as I could during my free time. It gives me strength to be able to try to look my best and focus on nice things like what I'm going to wear or makeup since I have to go out anyway. I rather not going out all the time looking like shit...

I had bought myself a few books to stay off of social media but my desire to be social eventually won over after a couple weeks. I made videos of things that made me happy. I made and shared short TikTok videos of mangas I enjoyed that I was re-reading to stay off of my phone more. Eventually, I wanted to buy gyaru-associated books. 

I was (and still am) on a bit of a re-kindled Tsubasa Masuwaka fix, and purchased a huge majority of her old published works. I found them incredibly interesting and tried to translate/use translation aids to help me read them. I decided that Tsubasaism especially was too neat to keep to myself and decided to tackle the huge challenge of translating it. The first thing I did was roughly translate the autobiography section that she wrote, scan the photosets to share (I busted out my old scanner and gotta twist myself under my damn desk to use it x_x) and then I continued on to edit the style advice section. I had never cleaned up pages before in my life nor had a translated like this. I tried to clean up the Japanese text and get the English text kind of close so the reading experience could be similar. 

Back in the day, it used to be a huge dream of mine to not only become a writer but also work at a publishing company or help clean/edit manga for a company like Viz. Unfortunately, that never worked out but getting to do it as a hobby for the first time definitely has been a fun learning experience. 

Unfortunately, the day before Halloween was the last time I saw my mother alive. The week after she passed away on November 6th at 10:30 am... It was really shocking because when I had first started visiting the hospital, she had been entirely unconscious and on a ventilator. However, a few weeks into visiting, I think a month later, she was off the ventilator, and was able to partially engage with us. She had been out for so long that she was bedridden and not able to move her muscles, use her voice/barely move her jaw but we were able to engage by talking and her mouthing/holding hands. 

The last day was really difficult for me because I thought she would have been fine. I visited her that day and had gone to a cafe to quickly eat and meet a friend from my college days. I hadn't socialized since August and it was the end of October and I was feeling extremely isolated.  I had just been grinding at work, sleeping, translating, and not really doing anything for myself mentally outside of translating. I missed talking to people...

 My mom was getting better and I thought we were leaving in the evening, so I decided to spend one hour of that visit to quickly meet my friend and eat for a second since I hadn't ate all day. I really hate that I did that but I had no idea that day would have been the last day I would see her...she was doing so well/recovering. So I thought that there would be many other times to see each other or that if she did pass, it would be much later given she was making so much positive progress. 

Unfortunately the next weekend after that visit with her and my friend, she passed on a visiting day very suddenly. She had been diagnosed with leukemia among also having some other complications that made things like chemotherapy extremely difficult. It's frustrating...she was only 55 and it's so young to just pass....I certainly thought I had more time with her.

I'm glad I did get to engage with her for a few weeks outside of her being unconscious for that first month. I'm grateful I got to hold her hand and update her on my life. I'm glad I got to tell her that I found a job before she passed and that I was doing well because at least I know she passed without her having to still worry about me taking so long to accomplish things... 

The morning of her passing, because the hospital is a two hour drive from me, we were late by an hour to see her alive. When I touched her in the hospital, she was still warm... 

That next week I felt like I was on autopilot. I cried many times and as eldest, also had to keep myself together to make help funeral arrangements with my stepdad, and go to work still since my time off was being split between two weeks given that my mother's funeral was the week after her passing. 

I helped select the clothes and makeup for her funeral. The day of the funeral was really sad but aesthetically it was really beautiful. I chose this really pretty long-sleeved yellow dress that had floral print and layers that she had bought recently. I was really shocked at that purchase. I felt like me wearing Liz Lisa had kind of rubbed off on her recently because the dress she wore was kind of a more mature take on Liz Lisa. 

Her dress matched all of the flowers that were a part of the funeral. It was unintentionally ironic that my stepdad and his family chose sunflowers. At the beginning of her hospitalization, the last huge gyaru look I did was a Liz Lisa dress with sunflowers. I had mentioned in my post how I wanted to wear things that represented cheerfulness, loyalty, peace, honesty, and longevity. I felt like this era for me is best represented with sunflowers and since they were laid with my mother, they have that much more of a sentimental meaning for me. 

I think we put her to rest in her last physical form in a really beautiful manner. 

As I write this, it's been almost two weeks since her funeral. I returned to work for a few days and was looking forward to having a longish break for the Thanksgiving holiday. However, I had to call out again from work because for a good week, I've been violently sick with everything but vomiting. I think this flu has been the sickest and the longest I've been sick ever. 

I'm not sure if it's from stress or just from cooties. Maybe both because everyone I know who I haven't seen in months have been sick with similar shit or are just now getting sick. Regardless, it's been miserable and I'm just now somewhat recovering. 

This sucks because we were going to try to do an okayish Thanksgiving since it was the first holiday without my mom and I wanted to try to squeeze in a look for my own mental health's sake since I'm kind of tired of always looking so ran down lately. But I guess life is like, LOL NOPE. So here I am trying to write a blog instead while I'm somewhat alive. 

So what does this all mean? What are my plans?

The translation project is somewhat on hiatus but I'm definitely continuing it when I'm less mentally and physically fatigued. 

I'm currently really longing for socialization. It's all been such an isolating experience and I'm so sick of being in my area. I've just been grinding at work and going to bed. I'm kind of tired of that routine but I'm also too mentally fatigued to take on anything that's too big of project given how fresh everything is. 

I really want to come back to both YouTube and TikTok properly and more consistently. I miss making videos. I miss talking about things that I'm passionate about and that make me happy. I've bought a lot of pretty things that I want to wear out but I've also purchased a lot of neat things that that I want to share. Lots of magazines and gyaru-related tech items. I'm really delving into print media again and hard and it's a lot of stuff that I haven't seen covered or really touched upon/hyped up so it would be an honor to be able to eventually be that person that could break down all of these neat things that I've been finding. 

I don't know when or even how, but I miss makeup tutorials. They take so much damn fucking time to do but they're so rewarding when they actually turn out nice. How I do my makeup has changed drastically since my last makeup tutorial. My skincare and everything has just entirely changed and I feel like my gyaru makeup has somewhat evolved from two years ago, and I'd like to share that eventually. 

Currently, as I have mentioned, I've been grinding at work. I've quickly moved up ranks at my office due to being able to catch on quickly/show up a lot (other than recently due to physically and emotionally eating shit this month) but I have a few goals. I know I mentioned how before everything happened, I had really wanted to move to Japan. I was really bummed out when I wasn't able to just up and yeet across the ocean like I had planned. However, I'd like to believe that everything happens for a reason.

Had I left in September like I planned to, I would have never got to see my mother better for the short time she had been. She was hospitalized mid-August. If anything, I wouldn't have been able to board the plane knowing that. I would have had to ditch a job over there to head back home around this time for a funeral. 

So maybe God knew all of this and prevented it knowing all what was about to come. Hence why I landed the job I did for now. 

Nothing is really binding me to where I live currently, but I do feel like I need to establish myself more and exist more here before I just up and decide to live a life away in another place for awhile. Plus, I kind of am afraid to entirely leave just in case I lose another person suddenly like this. Call it cautious trauma.  I want to funnel my money into a place for myself or into a property for my remaining family so we actually have proper roots somewhere. I feel like it's needed just for a sense of security. 

However, I still do want to go to Japan to visit. So I think my goal for this next year is to save up to finally travel to Japan for two weeks. A part of it will even be a gyaru pilgrimage maybe..? I kind of want to go in August around the time of Summer Sonic...but that depends on the music lineup so I might base it around the firework festivals around that time instead if Summer Sonic is a bust in terms of the lineup. The original plan was A-Nation years ago but I don't know if that's even a thing post-COVID. Plus the lineup isn't as neat as it used to be. I'd go for Ayu but I could just go see an Ayu concert then without the trouble of a whole ass music festival. haha... 

I've always wanted to go to yes, a few music concerts to see some acts that I know won't visit California, but I also want to a proper Matsuri. I'm not fond of cold weather either, and while I'd love to travel in March for sakura season, given that the border just recently opened, tourism will probably be more insane than usual around that time...and it's just too soon and I don't want to wait more than a year to go. So around the summer it is. Not June or July because piss rain during rainy season..lmfao but I'm not avoiding the potential typhoons so I don't know if I'm actually gonna properly win with choosing August, but god I hope so. 

SO..I think that's some of my bigger goals. 

Smaller goals are to get through Christmas. I have half of my nice gifts for people all picked out. I just need to finish off my baby brother's gift and the other half of my coworkers gift. I have one part of it but not the bigger bit for them. Then I'm finished I think! I'm trying to make Christmas nice since these past few months have truly sucked. I feel like I want to end off 2022 on a nice note in hopes of 2023 being gentler on us all..

Anyway, I hope you all have been well. Hopefully, I can update here more maybe? Possibly? I know blogs aren't as popular as they used to be. I'll try to go back to making videos soonish when I feel less like crap x_x