-Shop cute Japanese products and cool products from Japan. This cute blog is about Japanese kawaii, kawaii Japan, kawaii fashion, Japanese pop culture and more. It's a kawaii blog from Japan, Japan blog in English by a Japanese girl.

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“Kawaii” is popular everywhere now.
Gaijin Gyaru in Spain, Yamamba and Hime Gyaru in the U.K, Lolita in Russia, and a Hime nail girl in Thailand.

Japanese fashion magazines are the source of kawaii culture. Chinese version of Japanese “Ray” magazine is the most widely read in the world. It’s released over one million copies already. It’s based on China. 80,000 people gathered from all over China to compete for the position of a cover girl to this magazine at the contest. Tokyo Kawaii TV negotiated with the authority of the contest and was told that they welcome Japanese models to join the contest.

How is street snap in Shanghai? There are young Chinese people who love Japanese culture and dress like Japanese people in Tokyo. A department store that opened 2004 in Shanghai has over 30 Japanese brand shops. Fashionable Chinese girls like to shop there to receive Japanese-styled high quality service at shopping. Nowadays as many as 9 Japanese fashion magazines are published in China, which are translated into Chinese.
“I can learn fashion and makeup from these magazines.” “Unlike western fashion magazines, the size of the clothes on Japanese magazines is suitable for us too.” These are the comments from the Chinese readers.

Chinese version of Ray magazine is translated from original Japanese version, added some unique posts from China and is available at stores in China 3 weeks after the Japanese version of Ray is released in Japan. It was 15 years ago they entered into licensing agreements. At first, Chinese version was thin and simple. Within 15 years, it’s 3 times thicker than the first stage thanks to increasing sponsors!

While Chinese Ray issues over 1 million copies, original Japanese Ray does 200,000 copies only.

Yuan-san is a Chinese reporter who shoots snaps on the street in Harajuku. He does this for Chinese fashion magazine. Since he came over to Japan, he has been updating Japanese trends thru his website for 22 years for Chinese people in the world. There are about 380,000 Chinese people from China, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and all over the world. Since tourist visa has been open for Chinese individuals in July 2009, there are more and more Chinese tourists coming to Japan today. Japanese products such as Kadokeshi or nose mask are so hot in China.

He also thought the LED hand mirror would be well-received in China. Today he is busy writing the articles about hot Japanese trends for his customers in Taiwan and Beijing.

Bunka Gakuen is the oldest fashion school in Japan that has turned out top designers such as Yohji Yamamoto or Hiroko Koshino. Nowadays international students from China have increased. There are more than 100 Chinese students enrolled at the school today. Shu-san is good at making stage costumes from the image of the fusion of European classic music and Japanese visual-kei music bands. She lives in an apartment in Gothic tasted interior and she likes Gackt and Mana-sama. It was 4.5 years ago she visited Japan for the first time to see the live concert of Mana-sama. She was so much inspired by the stage costumes worn at the concert and she thought she wanted to make them by herself. “I want to make costumes from the image I sensed from my favorite music” says Shu-san. She makes all the clothes she wears daily. Her dream is to connect Japan and China through stage costumes and clothes.

Tokyo Kawaii TV decided to select Japanese models for the candidates of the cover girl to the Chinese Ray magazine.
In fact, there are some Japanese people who succeeded in promoting in China. In the Chinese version of LEON magazine for example, you can find Komatsu-san, a 31-year-old Japanese guy. He has succeeded in Chinese show business industry and he speaks good Chinese. 3 years ago, he was acting as a side character at some small-scaled afternoon dramas in Japan, but his carrier was not something he was able to be proud of. When he heard the opportunity for the audition that was held by a TV station in China, he thought he had to challenge it and if he failed, he would have to give up show business industry. He left Japan, joined the audition and was selected one of the top 20 good looking guys at the audition. Since then Chinese people supported him to make him popular.

In Hong Kong, Kuranari-san, a Japanese woman has become very popular through a major TV program. She used to be a dokumo to a Japanese fashion magazine and her carrier in Japan was limited to some image videos. She taught herself both English and Chinese, and especially she enjoys learning Chinese from singing karaoke.

Kirin’s opinion:
I respect Yuan-san. I just wonder how it’s like to be to keep running this blog for over 20 years…and I still act like kawaii 50s, 60s, and 70s who recommend kawaii artificial tooth and reading glasses! That’s kinda cute though…lol I can be a kawaii old lady, haha!
But it’ll be so cool if I can receive writing jobs thru this blog like him. :p

It’s always so interesting how Japanese fashion is liked by the people from many different places on the globe.
BTW, I think it’s a good idea to learn foreign language from singing! I wonder why these Japanese fashion magazines are not translated into English first of all. That could’ve been possible before Chinese version… :p

Disclaimer: Tokyo Kawaii TV is a TV program owned and broadcasted by NHK Japan, and has nothing to do with this blog.

***There are archives of episodes listed under the page titled “Tokyo Kawaii TV” that is just located under the title banner of this blog.
***If you want to know the music that was used in the episode, please refer to this page and help yourself to find it by selecting the date when the episode was on air in Japan.

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Wealthy madams are invited to the private fashion show of remodeled dresses and this kind of show is now available at international cities such as London, Hong Kong or Sydney. It was 2 Japanese people who started it.
Some department stores started to invite second hand clothes store such as RAG TAG, which is considered pretty unusual because department store normally is the place that sells the latest novelty.

RAG TAG also modifies the old clothes brought by their customers and remodel it into a bag and sell it for 42,000-57,750yen. 21 bags were sold in 2 months.

So what happened to the eco products that Beni-chan and Mr. Ikki are making?
(continued from the previous episode “Cool Eco Products“.)

DonDonDown is a revolutionary old clothes shop. Within 5 years since its opening, it has opened 32 stores in Japan and its annual sales are 900 million yen in 2009. What makes this old clothes shop revolutionary is that it has groundbreaking system that no other old clothes shop do.
It’s the vege tags. Each vegetable means the price and it’s cut down 1000yen every Wednesday until finally it’s priced 100yen.

It’s the shoppers who decide if they should wait until next Wednesday to get the item 1000yen cheaper or they should buy it now. If they wait, the item can be taken by someone else. This system is just like a game and customers love it. It was formulated by Okamoto-san, the president of the company.

Okamoto-san started to work as an old clothes buyer at flea markets in the U.S when he was 18. At the age of 23, he opened a vintage clothing store in Tokyo but his problem was that he had too much of dead stock. After all he had to close down 12 stores he had. From over 10 years struggle, he created this system that the price decreases 1000yen once every week. This system was good enough to stimulate consumer appetite. “Customers don’t buy things unless they are motivated,” says Okamoto-san. This system helped resolve the dead stock problem and turnover rate increased by 100%.

“Every piece of 2nd hand clothes is unique. There’s nothing identical. It depends on each person how he or she evaluates the item. They buy it at the timing when they find value on it. As it turns out, not many items wait to be priced for 100yen. Second hand clothes market in Japan has increased quadruple in the past 10 years. Okamoto-san’s company had 30 employees at the institution, which has increased up to 174 employees today.

There are people who visit this store every Wednesday and buy only 100yen clothes. This couple lives in a 6 mats apartment house together. The boyfriend has experienced remodeling old clothes for 4 years. He sells modified clothes at online auction and when he does it better, he earns 260,000yen from this work in one month. The girlfriend also gives him some good opinions. They dream to have a shop in the future.

Kouenji is the district for second hand clothes. Some gyaru girls who are not satisfied with Shibuya or Harajuku fashion come over to Kouenji to shop old clothes.
NINCOMPOOP CAPACITY is especially supported by Gyaru type of girls. Cathy-san, the designer of the store makes clothes from second hand clothes or fabric that she collected from flea market. She doesn’t even use scissors and dress pattern. It’s her inspiration that she needs.

Oh la la is European old clothes shop. Customers bring their clothes to the owner of the store to modify it.
Surprisingly, she threads into the holes that were opened and does not open a new hole at modification.

Eco accessories Beni-chan and Sugimoto-san created from rubbish were highly evaluated by the logistic center and Mr. Masuda, who has been a member of Good Design Award jury for over 20 years, gave them 100/100 scores. The eco furniture made by Mr. Ikki and 3 students was not finished well in a limited time. It was remade into better looking furniture a couple of days later.

Kirin’s opinion;
Rag Tag’s remodeled bags are cute, but they are too expensive!! Dondondown looks interesting. I’d love to go there but it looks that most of the stores are located away from central area. I guess I can check out the one in Shimokitazawa… :p I am not interested in vintage clothes. I don’t feel like paying a lot of money for recycled clothes. But it’s not that I can accept bad quality, either. Usually I end up buying new clothes because old clothes in Japan are often priced nearly as much as new ones. I’m not talking about vintage stuff, of course. Ah~ here again I regret being incapable of sewing! I should’ve learned it well when I had plenty of time. (>_<)

Disclaimer: Tokyo Kawaii TV is a TV program owned and broadcasted by NHK Japan, and has nothing to do with this blog.

***There are archives of episodes listed under the page titled "Tokyo Kawaii TV” that is just located under the title banner of this blog.
***If you want to know the music that was used in the episode, please refer to this page and help yourself to find it by selecting the date when the episode was on air in Japan.

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Some cool recycled products are available at Le Garage in Roppongi.
Both seat belt bag and tube bag are from used vehicles. Antique -look candle holder is made of beer cans. The pouches that are made of beverage labels and candy wrappers have been popular among foreign celebs, too.

The episode refers to the new type of second hand clothes shop in Japan as well as “recessionistas” who enjoy making only one unique item from second hand clothes shops at Koenji, Tokyo.

Speaking of eco some time ago, it may have sounded a bit unsophisticated, but nowadays it’s something cool!

Mr. Ikki and Beni-chan visited Winroader Ecoland logistics center.
It’s a warehouse where disused goods from home or office are stored. The weigh of those goods is as much as 10 tons and that is accumulated everyday!
Every year around 2.6 million tons of unwanted items are thrown in Japan. (>_<)
Winroader is a company that used to collect rubbish but nowadays they modify the rubbish to make something cool and sell it.

There are 3 points when we consider remaking rubbish.
1) It must be something from which we can produce as many products as possible.
(i.e. computer keyboard)
2) It must be easy to use.
3) It must be from the rubbish that is often thrown away.

Sugimoto-san is an accessory designer who makes cute accessories from scraps.
The pierced earrings from the combination of computer parts and peal beads are nice.
3 male students are the group of making sustainable designed products.

Beni-chan with Sugimoto-san, Mr. Ikki with the 3 students group, they started to make eco products from the scraps.
The time limit for the project is 1 hour.
Mr. Masuda, who has been a member of jury for Good Design Award for over 20 years, is overlooking the project.

Sapporo eco design contest was something very interesting.
Especially the wine bottle lamp shade was so great that it was already commercialized by
SECCO from Finland. The lamp shade is sold for about 40,000yen and is so popular around Europe.
Who invented and created it?
Kusumoto-san is a glassworks artisan who lives and works in Hokkaido.
How does she make the lamp shade?
She first cut the neck of the wine bottle and connect 13 wine bottles one another by soldering.
The lamp shade with 35 wine bottles is 52,500yen. She acquires wine bottles from a bar in Sapporo for free. She has created several other works from other parts of wine bottles too.

Some students want to be an eco product creator.

Beni-chan and Sugimoto-san decided to make cute accessories while Mr. Ikki and 3 students thought of spinning shelf.

It’s been a while since eco bag has become popular. How do people make use of it?
It’s originally the item for something pro-environment. But in Japan it looks like a part of fashion. Some people have 7 eco bags for example, while there are people who can pay as much as 170,000yen (USD1900) for a Hermes eco bag.

The woman at a creaning store in Yamagata prefecture is good at remodeling the old clothes into an eco bag.
This is the true meaning of eco bag.

The eco products created by Beni-chan and Mr. Ikki will be shared at the next episode.

Kirin’s opinion:
I think it’s really cool to create something kawaii from what people threw away. I like the wine bottle lamp shade, too.
Things can be used in different ways before they are thrown away. But our time and space is so limited that we cannot help throwing them away. If we lead a slow life, our life can be so creative and fun.

The episode that succeeds to this episode will be posted tomorrow so please come back to check what happened to Beni-chan and Mr. Ikki’s eco product project.

Disclaimer: Tokyo Kawaii TV is a TV program owned and broadcasted by NHK Japan, and has nothing to do with this blog.

***There are archives of episodes listed under the page titled “Tokyo Kawaii TV” that is just located under the title banner of this blog.
***If you want to know the music that was used in the episode, please refer to this page and help yourself to find it by selecting the date when the episode was on air in Japan.

Freebie with brand catalogue or fashion magazine – this has been a popular style for a while in Japan. Like Lesportsac, cher, or agnes b, some brands like to sell their catalog with kawaii freebies such as eco bag or pouch at a very reasonable price.

I usually don’t buy a magazine for freebie unless I badly want it. As for Kitson, I don’t like its too much of glittering bags in addition to how overpriced they are. (Kitson is also very popular among young Japanese girls.)

But when I saw the heaps of pleasant pink colored mooks (“Mook” is a coined word in Japanese that means a magazine that looks like a book.) and the nice looking image photo of the content that the tote was simple black and big enough for A4 sized envelope, I started to imagine that this must be something so cute to have with some kawaii charms to be decorated. I have some pouches from Swimmer and especially from Lesportsac, I wanted the tote more than the pouch.

It was 980yen, not pricey at all, and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity like I did at the face roller last time. When I first found the face roller (3000yen), I was attracted so much but that time I was wise enough to go back home first to check out the Amazon reviews to reconsider if I really want it! Then I found it was supported by many users, I went back to the book store to find nothing was left. I looked for some other book stores then but I didn’t find it until today. Ah, this might be the reason I rushed for the Kitson mook without checking the review.

As it turned out, the Kitson tote was the lowest quality, the cheapest freebie I’ve ever seen. It was as good as rubbish! The textile, which looks like sueded fabric, is so thin with no pocket inside or outside. It looks so worn-out and cannot stand as itself. It’s just like an eco bag or something that will end up with a piece of junk once it’s wet in the rain. In that sense, plastic eco bag works even better. I couldn’t believe what I saw when I opened the box. I’d feel embarrassed to have such a shabby stuff in the middle of Tokyo. The pouch is still better than the tote though.

On the way back home, I was wondering how I can make use of this ugly Kitson. I regretted that I bought it. It’s not the matter of the price, I don’t like to be surrounded by what I dislike, but I feel like a looser if I throw it away. I was also curious how the other Japanese users review this tote. It shouldn’t be only I that was totally disappointed at the quality, and I was right. The reviews on Amazon.co.jp were almost the same comments and impressions that I had. I should’ve checked it out before I reached out to the mook. At least if the book stores had a sample tote, I wouldn’t have bought it. (It’s possible they avoided that because they want to sell them. lol Sorry, that sounds mean. :p )

You can see how shabby the fabric is.

I think I should stay away from freebies. I have no luck since the Lesportsac. (BTW I had it exchanged a month later.) I think that I woudn’t bother to pay 2000yen for some better quality that is enough to bring out from home. Paying 1000yen for such a bad quality means nothing. I feel as if I bought a piece of rubbish for 1000yen. I think Kinokuniya Japanese book store is located at many cities abroad. If you ever find it, I wouldn’t recommend you should casually buy this mook.

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