Ayumi-chan says: choose vibrant colours for short pants!
From upper left to bottom right:
1. Choose neon colour
2. Accessorise with vibrant suspenders
3. Low-tech sneakers are super sporty!
4. Wear American T-shirts mischieviously…
This looks pretty interesting. Summer clothing swap-coordination. Basically, you switch and coordinate different styles with the fifteen articles of clothing in the box inset above. The total price comes down to 9509yen which is roughly $95 – less than $100 which will last you for 30 days of smart coordination!
Well, I hope you enjoyed that!
Oh hai. I think the magazine is celebrating 8 years of this comic Buutan..perhaps. I just thought it was cute.
Word of the Day
豚・buta
pig
豚のように食べた。(buta no you ni tabeta) I ate like a pig.
For a while there, you thought that ‘song of the week’ had disappeared forever. Well, I’m glad to say, it’s back! Sometimes, music just brightens your day that much more, so I am super-extra- happy to welcome two songs in one week to make up for all the lost songs in the past.. month or so.
The singer’s name きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ・Kyary Pamyu Pamyu does not sound like a name at all, I must admit. Nevertheless, her songs are very addicting to watch, and they do, as by my all-music-must-do-rule, brighten up your day.
Some quick background info on the singer – her real name is actually Kiriko Takemura (I am very humbly sorry to shock many people that ‘kyary pamyu pamyu’ is not her real birth name. Imagine writing that during Kindergarten.) She is also a model and blogger, often featuring in the Harajuku fashion magazine ‘Kera’.
Oh, and she is 19 this year.
Here is a lovely picture of our singer with some ketchup on her face.
PonPonPon – Kyary’s first single. Please do enjoy this psychedelically challenging ride of a MV. It’s amazing how you don’t get bored while watching, and at the same time, the music is so catchy♪ It actually topped the music charts internationally so I’m so proud of her!
Candy Candy – Kyary’s second physical single.
la la la~ Hope you love Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s bright and bubbly music as much as I do!
Popteen is a monthly fashion magazine published by Kadokawa Haruki Corporation in Japan. It is now one of Asia’s top fashion magazines, also distributed to Taiwan, Thailand and recently, the United States as well (in English of course). It features gyaru fashion, especially trends amongst high school students.
The magazine is mainly known for its gyaru icons, such as Ayumi Hamasaki, previously Tsubasa Masuwaka (graduated 2007 after marrying model Naoki Umeda), and now Funayama Kumiko (Kumicky♪).
Other artists who have appeared on the cover include Kumi Koda, Namie Amuro, Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears, Fergie and Gwen Stefani.
The magazine is well known for ‘doku-moderu’ (読者モデル), where readers have the opportunity to become models in the magazine through Popteen’s model search each year.
See the top right corner? That’s right, Big Bang was featured in this issue of Popteen! Continue reading →
Welcome to the next installation of Japanese Keitai!
I would like to introduce to those who don’t know yet, emoji (also known as kaomoji)! The wonder of ’emotional characters’/EMOJI is prevalent in Japan and referred to outside of Japan as ‘smileys’ or ’emoticons’ (you know, those familiar yellow circles with various faces on it).
Now if I think back, waay back, to my MSN messenger days I can recall collecting endless lists of emoticons that jigged around my screen and did what not. But that was just on msn, definitely not on my brick phone. Only recently did i notice iPhones start popping out their new feature of including ’emoji’ in the keyboards. But sadly they do not move. Still, Awesome! Now I can add that extra cherry on top of my txts with these tiny faces and objects, because we all know how lame and unexciting plain old txts are.
Anyhow if we glance over now to Japan we may discover, oh but hang on, it appears they had this going before iPhones were even born!
Amongst the big three companies AU by KDDI, Docomo NTT and Softbank, each has their own special list of emoji. Complicating matters further, this means that if an AU user sent a ♪ emoji to their Softbank friend, it may turn out in a different color or something. Thus, this creates a big dilemma for many Japanese high school students choosing their new keitai. Anyhow. Not important.
Though Japan’s emoji may not have as much minuscule detail as that of iPhone’s, they have a remarkably extensive variety to choose from, despite being quite quite simple. Check out below, Japan’s top 10 most used emoji in txt msgs!
I find it hilarious that the cat beat beer in the top 10. Do cats seriously turn up more than beer in Japanese conversations? After all Japan seems to love their beer, indicated by the mass of beer CMs…
Apparently this is how to enjoy beer (if you’re of age!)
Oh and I love these ‘All-free Suntory’ beer CMs, 0% alcohol! (I know it can get a bit repetitive after two)
More!!
and yet there’s still more!!!!
…oh but then again I guess there’s nyancat..
But I digress. Back to emoji. Now if you’re sad that you don’t have an iPhone, or that your friends can’t receive your iPhone emoji, then you can always resort to the good old manual smileys: Exhibit A ” 🙂 ”
But of course, the Japanese wakamono have taken it one step further to:
(●´∀｀●) or even ヾ(●´□｀●)ﾉ【ﾟ+｡･oこんにちはo･｡+ﾟ】ヾ(○´■｀○)ﾉ\\
(These may or may not turn up fully on your screens, depending on the level of awesomeness that your laptop/computer can accommodate. )
For more extreme kaomoji to share with your friends via emails or txt msgs, please make your way to KAOMOJIYA-SAN! (and credit to them for the above faces)
I guess I should close with a cat…~(=^･ω･^)/｡･:*:･ﾟ★，｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ありがとニャ!
The seifuku is an item of wonder and transformation.
…at least to me it is.
Originally, the Japanese seifuku was modelled on European-style naval uniforms in the late 19th century. Traditionally, the boys uniform was military style and the girls uniform was a sailor outfit.
Das right. The sailor outfit replaced the hakama in the Meiji Era i.e. this wonderfully stylish piece↓
I wish I was given the chance to wear this to school everyday. At least when the wind blows, the skirt won’t fly up like a parachute.
All schools have a summer version of the uniform (white dress shirt and uniform slacks for boys and traditional uniform/blouse and tartan skirt for girls) and a sports activity uniform. The sailor uniform is like a symbol of youth. Some fashionista individuals, if you’re being stereotypical – Tokyo girls, will subvert the uniform by adding loose socks, decorations, badges, shortening their skirts, etc. And in a way, that is how the gyaru fashion was brought about. (Will blog about later)
When I first heard the name of this documentary I literally imagined a story about an old man, er, dreaming about sushi? It didn’t sound like the normal action-packed-kung-fu-samurai-ninja-blood-splatting-rainbow-jelly-bean-unicorn movies that I normally watched. So, you know, I wasn’t too sure about how long I would last in the theatre before I started nodding off to sleep. Continue reading →
Ganbare Genki! 頑張れ元気！ 