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Malaysian Gyaru Blogger
28/MAY/2011 on air

Beautiful foreign gyaru from the U.S…Sara Mari
Sexy gyaru shop owner from Vietnam…Hoang Viet Nga
Successful gyaru blogger from Singapore…Xiaxue

Successful gyaru blogger who spread Japanese false lashes in Malaysia…Cheesie
She introduced Japanese false lashes in her blog around 2 years ago, which brought false lashes fad in Asia.

Koji is a 84-year-old false lashes brand in Japan. Their false lashes “Dolly Wink” collaborated with Tsubasa Masuwaka a few years ago have been selling so well as to expand their sales to China, North America and even to Middle East! Above all, Malaysia is the top sales market, thanks to Cheesie’s blog.

Lie and Maiko, after seeing Xiaxue, moved from Singapore to KL, Malaysia to see Cheesie. They found bling-bling deco goods, sweets accessories, Shibuya-kei style and Japanese fashion magazines in Malaysia. They also found Uniqlo in Malaysia that has the same clothing and at the same price as in Japan. Who will buy Uniqlo Heattech under such hot climate? Some customers from abroad get it as a souvenir and wear it back home. Lie realized a difference of displaying clothes. In Japan, we normally do not cover the head of dummy with hood. Maybe they cover the head so that should look familiar to the Muslim? They then encountered Mr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, the 4th prime minister of Malaysia’s.

Cheesie and her friend Audrey look like Japanese gyaru. When Lie and Maiko visit a local drug store, they found the Dolly Wink false lashes and learned they are most popular among Malaysian girls. Cheesie drove them to her apartment by her own car. She bought the new 2-bedroom apartment 2 years ago with a 30-year loan. She started her business 2 years ago, which is to introduce Japanese fashion online. The false lashes are given by her sponsors. She used to be a fashion model. Modeling herself on her blog, over 8000 page views per day. Her monthly ad revenue is about 280,000yen, which is considered to be triple times more than an average Malaysian income!

Cheesie got to like gyaru fashion while she studied in Japan a few years ago. They gathered Malaysian girls who want to be a gyaru. They’re going to make a gyaru circle in Malaysia. They had a gyaru meets at a twin tower in KL.

Maiko gives gyaru makeup. Make eyebrows closer to eyes to make a gyaru-look face. She uses double-fold eyelids tape that she brought from Japan. Malaysian girls are so enthusiastic about the cosmetics Maiko carries. Look at her magic 40 minutes later! The first gyaru meets in Malaysia was very successful. More girls who want to be a gyaru joined the circle. Later, they continue the gyaru circle as “Foruchizu” on Facebook with Cheesie as a representative, Lie and Maiko as advisers.

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Kirin’s opinion:
Cheesie and Audrey speak good Japanese and they are kawaii! How interesting Japanese fashion or culture is so much loved by the people in Malaysia.
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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.

Tokyo Kawaii TV in Vietnam
6/NOV/2010 on air

Following Shanghai, Hong Kong and Thailand, Tokyo Kawaii TV is to be broadcasted in Vietnam! HTV3 is a state-run TV channel in Vietnam that mostly deals with Japanese anime and programs dedicated for young people. They liked Tokyo Kawaii TV.

Street snap from the streets in Hanoi. There is a mini Harajuku? They found a store named Harajuku and even the one named Onii-kei. (They misspells it.)

The store named Tokyo sells the stuff the owner purchased in Tokyo.

A shirt for 50,000-70,000yen, a pair of shoes or a watch for 70,000-300,000yen…most of them are actually European brands and they are quite expensive. The owner can speak Japanese because he had lived in Japan for 6 years. “All the things in this store are from Tokyo. I want to make this store luxurious as if it were in Tokyo.” Their main customers are the people called “New Rich”. One of them can even pay 15 million yen (equivalent of VND) by cash when he shops there. The sales of the store surged by 3 times this year. That’s why the owner seems so happy.

There is a Shibuya Gyaru-kei shop where the customers can read Japanese gyaru fashion magazines. The owner of the shop is as well as a producer of the shop who had stayed in Japan for 6 years and experienced a sales assistant at Shibuya 109. She mastered Gyaru fashion in Japan and then established her brand for the Vietnamese 5 years ago when she came back home. She knew Vietnamese girls would love Gyaru fashion. She already opened another shop a month ago. She is a pioneer of gyaru fashion in Vietnam.

What about making-over Vietnamese boy and girl? Tokyo Kawaii TV searched the candidates at Vietnam Festival in Tokyo where many of the Vietnamese living in Japan gather. What taste of fashion do they like? Hime-kei, Cosplay, Onii-kei. Gyaru-kei, Lolita fashion or Urahara-kei?

Lolita is the most popular style for Vietnamese people to feel like trying, followed by Gyaru-kei and then Onii-kei. A Japanese Onii-kei model Ryo-kun makes over a Vietnamese boy to an Onii-kei boy. Yunkoro makes over a Vietnamese girl to a Gyaru. Misako, the queen of Lolita, makes over a Vietnamese model to a Lolita. “Tokyo Kawaii TV is a wonderful TV program that broadcasts what’s up now among young Japanese people. We believe it will make a difference to the young Vietnamese definitely!” says the representative of HTV3 from Vietnam who joined the contest to see how they are going to change.

“Young Vietnamese people are interested in fashion but they are hungry for up-to-date information. They want to dress like Harajuku style or Shibuya style because they know Tokyo is a center of fashion!” say the TV director and the producer from Vietnam who also joined the contest as a judge.

Yunkoro’s gyaru team visited Shibuya 109 and checked out some fake fur items and boots.
MAISON GILFY
BACKS
REDLIPS　

They then went to the hair salon that Yunkoro frequents to buy a wig.
Yunkoro by herself gave the girl a Gyaru makeup with gold colored eyebrow mascara and circle lenses.

Misako’s lolita team visited Shinjuku Marui One.
Angelic Pretty
Metamorphose　
Baby The Stars Shine Bright　

Ryo-kun’s Onii-kei team checked out some Onii-kei brands.
A.R.K
Ceno

Approx. 10,000 people gathered at the Cosplay Festa held in Hanoi. Cosplayers have to make their costume by themselves since there are no cosplay costume shops in Vietnam yet. However there is a woman who is considered the best cosplay costume maker in Hanoi, who takes orders from cosplayer one after another. She makes 5 costumes per month, and her income is 10,000yen. Considering it’s 4,000yen in average that public service workers earn monthly, her income is quite good.

The winner of the contest is authorized to appear on the channel HTV3.
It will take an hour to dress in Lolita from top to bottom.
300,000yen was spent for the Onii-kei coordination!
Gyaru-kei was the best of all. It was the best make-over!

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Kirin’s opinion:
I personally liked the lolita girl more than gyaru. How about you?
How interesting Japanese fashion is becoming popular in Vietnam!
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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.

International Gyaru and Gyaruo in Tokyo
26/FEB/2011 on air

Sara Mari is a beautiful American gyaru who frequently visit Tokyo. While she is in Japan, she stays over her Japanese friend’s house. She established a Gyaru-friends network on Facebook and there are nearly 700 members. At the 7th visit to Tokyo, she organized international Gyaru Meets at Shibuya with those who love Shibuya inspired fashion in the world.

It was 3 years ago that Sara Mari succeeded in losing 50kg. She had wanted to dress herself with Japanese kawaii clothing. It was inevitable for her to change her body shape by losing weight.

In 2010, 8.6 millions of foreigners visited Japan including beautiful foreign gyaru. Jennie from France and Alex from Russia challenge to makeover a Japanese girl and a boy for a gyaru and a gyaruo.

Jennie became a sales assistant of one of the shops at Shibuya 109 4 months ago. She came to Japan to study design after she graduated from high school in France. Her life in Tokyo is happy because she is engaged in what she loves: fashion and manga. When she was 14, she was interested in Japanese gyaru fashion thanks to Japanese fashion magazines she was reading. But her family was against her because gyaru fashion is considered dangerous in France. She convinced her parents and came to Japan. Her family send her 65,000yen monthly but it all goes to payment for her rent. She makes living from part-time job. Her dream is to become a model

Alex is a junior at a university in Tokyo. He came Japan 3 years ago. His dream is to build Shibuya 109 overseas, but for now he wants to get a job at fashion business industry. However, he gives up dressing as Gyaruo during his job hunting. He knows Japanese society. “I think Japanese society doesn’t like people who look outstanding. I personally believe I’d better not look outstanding while I am hunting jobs.”

Jennie and Alex searched a girl who wants to be a gyaru and a boy who wants to be a gyaruo. Alex found Yamada-kun. They went to Shibuya 109 and bought some wild taste of clothing and accessory. They also visited the hair salon that Alex frequents. KAZU-san is a charismatic hairstylist among Gyaruo.

Jennie and Kana-chan bought tights and clothes but their opinion conflicted. Kana-chan didn’t want white but Jennie insisted it should work out. Jennie’s friend helped makeup.

Lately Chinese tourists visit high-class brands districts such as Ginza. A woman for example spent 150,000yen for bags, 250,000yen for cosmetics. Men like to purchase luxurious watches. In 2010, visitors from China to Japan were recorded 1.4 million people. Especially young Chinese women like reasonable fashion in Shibuya. Some college students come in sales period. Reflecting such trends, Cecil McBee for example, placed a Chinese sales assistant at their Shibuya 109 shop. This contributed to boosting their sales. However, hiring a Chinese employee is not always the same Japanese one. Some Chinese candidates do not appear in the interview without notice.

Sara Mari organized Gyaru Meets starting at Shibuya 109. 15 Gyaru from 8 countries gathered. They went shopping, purikura, and karaoke together. They promised to meet up again this summer.

How does the make over turn out? Did the boy become a Gyaruo? Did the girl become a Gyaru? Kana-chan seems swollen in spite of Jennie’s effort. Alex did a good job to makeover from an innocent-look boy to Gyaruo.

Kirin’s opinion
Great job, Sara Mari!
It’s nice to see some people I know on TV.
If there’s anyone who is interested in studying or working in Japan, why don’t you contact Jennie or Alex? (I searched Alex’s blog but not found.)

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.