crash course: bodikon gyaru & Juliana's Tokyo

welcome back~! lets jump into another gyaru blog!

so, if youve been around since the beginning, then you might remember that in my first ever blog post, we discussed the origins of gyaru! if you dont remember, then please dont go read that blog... rereading it now, its honestly garbage! despair aside, let me recap some of the gyaru origin story!

gyaru was first created in the 80s in bubble era japan. if you know a bit about japanese history, you might already know that this time period was an economic boom for japan, as the term "bubble era" refers to, quite literally, an economic bubble. the bubble grew and grew and grew, making this era one of immense economic prosperity. during this time, women entered the workforce for the first time on a large scale, thanks to the equal opportunity employment law that japan implemented in 1985, just as the bubble era began. gone were the days where a young girls only aspiration was to marry well and become a housewife and mother, as the social visibility of working women skyrocketed. estimates stated that in the 1980s, women in their 20s had the highest amount of disposable income out of any demographic in japan. just 40 years out of world war 2, this was perhaps the first time in the nations history that women had money to burn. 

with more social and economic freedom, the idea of a traditionally submissive woman began to fade as assertive, opinionated, and bold women began to appear on the scene. an executive woman who looked good, worked hard, and partied even harder was now the norm. some estimates state that almost 1/3 of japanese working women were "office ladies," or OL for short. they performed secretarial duties, and were known by the rather misogynistic term of "office flowers," a beautiful image to represent their companies. this is where we begin to see some drawbacks of the era, but we'll explore those a bit later. 

so, here's where we're at: women are working on a large scale and earning equally to men, sometimes more. showa idols and city pop are all the rage, and image is everything. these women seem to have a keen understanding that one must have a good balance of work and play, sometimes valuing their play even more. what does all this amount to?

Bodikon, of course!

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HISTORY & GENERAL INFO

Bodikon, abbreviated from the english words "body conscious," was for all intents and purposes, the predecessor to gyaru. sometimes called Otachidai Gyaru or Ikeike, it is characterized by skin-tight clothing, most often bodycon dresses, as well as clubbing and nightlife. the style first emerged in osaka between 1985-1986, and quickly spread to the entire nation, most notably to tokyo. the fashion rapidly cemented itself into the mainstream, with OL's wearing the style at work, on the street, and even at formal events. high school and college students began to imitate the style and even wore the style at school (we'll touch on this again later).

makeup was flashy and bold. light foundation was applied, and although tanning was popular during this time, it was not at all a requirement. lipstick was either red or pink, mainly from designer brands like Gucci and Dior. blush was applied diagonally in brown, orange, or yellow. popular eyeshadow colors were purple or blue, and would be applied as a solid color. bold black eyeliner and lots of mascara would amplify the drama of the look. eyebrows, unlike modern gyaru make, would be dark and thick, and it was popular to make your eyebrows thicker with makeup. however, by the mid-90s, eyebrows in the fashion became thinner, so either works for the style and whether you prefer a more 80s look or a 90s look.

hair could be worn in various styles, but it was almost always kept long. the most popular style was the wanren (ワンレンボブ), or "one-length" style. as its name suggests, the hair was kept entirely one length and was almost always straight. this style was popular as it created a mature, professional appearance, and it was so popular that the style was often called Wanren Bodikon (more below). sometimes, the hairstyle would be paired with tosakamaegami (とさか前髪) bangs, or "rooster hair," as they were described as looking like chicken combs. they could either be straight or curled, and sat at the top of the head. the bangs hung down slightly, and they were sprayed with hairspray to keep them in place (hairspray was a Bodikon must-have). wanren didn’t always have tosakamaegami bangs, but they were very common until the early 90s. another popular Bodikon hairstyle was the sauvage/sovereign (ワンレンソバージュ) hairstyle, with sauvage meaning "wild" in french. this hairstyle was a natural wave perm with lots of volume. this hairstyle was extremely popular in the mid-to-late 80s and visually resembles wanren, only curly. most Bodikon women had black hair, but as the style became more radicalised and extreme around 1993-1994, dyed shades of brown and even blonde became common, and gyaru as we know it began to take form here.

a hallmark of Bodikon style was its sex appeal, enhanced by its brash sexual style of flattering lines to the body and usage of neon, colourful designs in red, purple, pink or yellow (generally primary colours). DC (short for "designer" and "character") brands began to gain popularity early 1980s, and stores in shibuya began to sell Bodikon clothes from late 1985 onwards, and was another aspect of bubble era prosperity. there were also 1950s influences, as shown by a glamorous aesthetic, usage of furs in coats, bags, and other accessories. this is often attributed by the re-airing of popular films of the decade in 1985 and 1986.

perhaps the most important aspect of Bodikon history is japanese nightlife scene of the time. the bubble era was especially reflected in nightlife, and going to the discothéque was a popular past-time. a plethora of new discothéques opened, most of them high-end with a luxurious aesthetic, and often required a dress code for both men and women. they were a status symbol. the staff would wear tuxedos, and male patrons wore suits. female patrons often partied decked-out in Bodikon, but those who disrupted the classy atmosphere were not allowed in. even though teenagers were prohibited from nightlife establishments in the roppongi and azabu areas of tokyo, they would manage to illegally gather in many discos across tokyo, with teenage girls often caught wearing Bodikon fashion there. this ignited a Bodikon craze amongst teenage girls, and raised concerns from traditionalists who claimed japan was losing its sense of morality to the vices of money and decadence. famous discothéques of the age included the Maharaja (マハラジ) chain of discothéques, the King & Queen chain of discothéques, and Juliana’s Tokyo (ジュリアナ東京).

they became gathering places for young women, often teenagers between the ages of 15-19 and college students. they became especially popular amongst OL's, frustrated by the male-dominated society and culture. Bodikon women were often seeking self-expression, flaunting their sexuality after spending their days working in the office, expected to be obedient and subservient to male colleagues and superiors. this where the drawbacks of Bodikon come into play. although gender equality was a trademark of the time, and despite the fact that there were now government protections for women in the workplace, women still faced difficulties. although they had worked hard and even held high-power positions, female workers were often reduced to nothing more than "office flowers," as i mentioned earlier. they would perform secretarial duties, but they would also be made to clean the office, make and serve tea for meetings, and greet clients. these women were the face of their companies, something beautiful to look at but not amounting to much more. so, as women dealt with these societal issues, they turned to Bodikon.

Bodikon women were regarded as a new breed of woman: independent and uninhibited, confident in her body, and assured of her sexuality. this resulted in two variants of Bodikon fashion: a "daytime variant", and a "nightlife variant." 

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BODIKON VARIANTS

General

generally, the iconic bodycon dress was extremely popular, and was considered the signature clothing piece of the style. they were almost always a neon/bright color (the most popular colours being red or yellow), and emphasized the lines of the body for a feminine look. they also showed off cleavage, and was often "wide open." the length of the skirt along the hip line went up to the thighs. it was initially only worn in discothéques and disco halls, before then being popularised as fashion wearable on the street by 1985. by the early 1990s, it was common to see women wearing patterned bodycon dresses, such as leopard and zebra. sequin bodycon dresses were very popular.

for shoes, they were almost always high heels, usually being black and décolleté in leather with medium heel for a classy look.

Daytime variant

the most popular style, particularly for day-to-day activities, was the One-Line style, or Wanren Bodikon (ワンレン・ボディコン). this was intended to be a mature and sophisticated style, with a fitted dress or suit-set that was usually in a solid bright color. this was so it could be uniform enough to pass for office-wear. the power suit was also incredibly popular, often colourful and including shoulder pads. it was considered a status symbol for OL's. sometimes a picture pattern, such as of tokyo’s neon lights, would be worn on a power suit, but this was not common. power suits were worn nearly everywhere in daily life, from job interviews, to nightlife, to housework.

Nightlife variant

also known as Sexy Bodikon, this became the prevailing Bodikon variant by 1993 with extreme style choices. it was popularised by celebrities, such Ai Iijima, an AV idol who featured prominently on the late-night TV show Gilgamesh Night. Natsuki Okamoto, a race girl, also helped to popularise this variant. she added her own touch to the style with the high-leg look, which was a bathing suit cut to reveal the thigh and hip. neon-coloured string bikinis, transparent dresses were popular in clubs but, were deemed generally inappropriate to wear on the day-to-day. neon mini-skirts, micro-bikinis and spandex, as well as extremely tight bodycon dresses with very short hemlines and revealing cut-outs. by 1993-1994, neon-coloured pvc clothing, such as hot pink pvc mini-skirts, were also highly popular in the disco scene. they were usually paired with long stockings and gold chains. pasties and string panties were often worn. popular accessories were large, customised belts and long, often white gloves for a glamorous look. some of the more radical women even used whips as accessories. tanning was a major part of the radical look, along with dyed blonde and brown hair.

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MUSIC & NIGHTCLUBS

**the information from this section is directly taken from article on Bodikon from the Aesthetics wiki! i'll have it linked below in the resources section. i've edited it slightly for better flow, and i've also reworked it a bit for the sake of storytelling, but none of the writing is my own! this information is so genuinely amazing that i wanted to share it as it is. enjoy!**

The cultural impact of discos like Juliana’s Tokyo during the Bubble period was phenomenal.

Juliana's Tokyo was located in a former warehouse in Shibaura, a bayside area in southern Tokyo that was undergoing redevelopment at the time and was desirable in the early 1990s due to its large plots of empty space, a rare commodity in overcrowded Tokyo. it Opened in May 1991 at a cost of 1.5 billion yen. it was a joint venture by Wembly PLC, the largest leisure service group in the United Kingdom (hence Juliana’s nickname as a "British discothéque") and Nishho Iwai Corp., a top Japanese trading company. The styling of the discothéque reflected its high-class, flagship status. Patrons first were checked at the door for age and dress, then they were let through the large fractured glass doors where they were greeted by six Japanese women dressed in miniskirts, bowing in unison. From there, the patron entered the large 1200 square meter dance floor. A chandelier made in California hung from the ceiling, which reflected the multicolored laser beams. A stage stood at the front of the room, and raised plexiglass platforms were placed periodically throughout the room where foreign professional dancers would take 15 minute turns dancing to the 26,000 watt sound system playing a variety of Techno, Rave, Eurobeat, and House music styles. Juliana's originally started out playing Italo House and Italo Disco and quickly followed popular trends to Hardcore techno, which became the disco’s signature music style. The collection of new Rave and House genres, as well as imported European dance music, became known amongst Japanese clubbers as Juliana’s Techno (ジュリテク), alternatively known as Hyper Techno. Note that there was a difference between Eurobeat and Juliana’s Techno/Hyper Techno, although both were danced to by Bodikon women; Eurobeat was characterised by its melodic, poppy sound while Juliana's techno was characterised by a gloomy oppressive rave sound that was perfectly suited for hardcore dancing. Up to 3000 people at a time could be on the dance-floor and the VIPs could also retreat to lounges. There is a different sound of music attributed to each year of the boom: For example, in 1992, Hardcore Techno was popular, but in 1993 a more melodic, oppressive form of techno as well as house music were popular. By 1994, Eurobeat music was more prevalent.

People rushed from all over Japan, even from as far away as Kyushu and Hokkaido, to dance there. The Opening night was reported as "pandemonium," with lines going on for entire streets and so much frenzy inside that they had to stop the music. Huge lines would form on the way from the adjacent Tamachi station to the Juliana's disco. The queues seemed to go on forever at the peak of the boom. One woman who had travelled all the way from Okayama to dance in Juliana’s told The Japan Times in May 1991: "I’ve been lining up for more than 50 minutes [to enter the discothéque]," while another woman who had travelled from Hiroshima stated, "I came to Tokyo [just] to dance here." It was even said by people that "Juliana's Tokyo is probably the only disco that the Imperial Family are visiting in the early hours of weekdays." As a major cultural sensation, these discos promoted the Bodikon fashions that were widely worn amongst Japanese young women of the time on a large scale, however the women who wore the more extreme nightlife variant of the Bodikon fashion were never more than a small minority, and more of a subculture that became a symbol of Shibuya and Roppongi.

an example of Radical Bodikon

Dozens of high school girls would watch the Juliana’s Tokyo dancers, almost all wearing Bodikon fashion, on late-night "Wide shows" on TV and attempting to emulate their dancing and style. Wide shows (ワイドショー), a then-emerging form of Late Night TV show that was a mixture of a news show, variety show, and a talk show, with an emphasis on 24-hour live coverage, young female presenters and sensationalist gossip, first emerged at the beginning of the Bubble in the mid-1980s, and these wide shows (such as the highly famous Tonight (トゥナイト) variety show that ran from 1980 to 1994) often ran late-night TV specials that followed the Bodikon "gals" to discos such as the Maharaja, Juliana’s, and also places like Shibaura’s GOLD discothéque, interviewing them and videoing them sexily dancing and gyrating on raised catwalk platforms known as the the otachidai (お立ち台): a kind of platform in the discos satirically named after the palace platform where the Japanese Imperial Family would appear, reflecting how the customer was expected to be treated like royalty, often driving male crowds crazy with their overtly-sexual dance moves. The otachidai first emerged from the Gize discothéque on the 3rd floor of the Roppongi Square Building, a building that housed prominent discos on virtually all of its floors, before emerging in the Maharaja’s Azajuban branch and then becoming a nationwide phenomenon, emerging at Juliana’s Tokyo at its opening in 1991. These Juliana’s TV specials, as well as the Juliana’s own "Juliana’s Live" show from December 1992 onwards that would air weekly to millions of Japanese (even being sponsored by Coca-Cola), sporting presenters such as the then-extremely popular American rapper MC Hammer, often had TV cameramen crouched below the otachidais in order to peep and film at the barely-covered underwear of the Bodikon women dancing, but most Bodikon women seemed to like the public exposure, viewing it as a liberation of their femininity. Additionally, there was another notable late-night TV show that was influential on the style: Gilgamesh Night (ギルガメッシュないと / ギルガメッシュ・ナイト). It was a softcore, late-night TV show that featured the most influential Bodikon women of the day, especially featuring the prominent Ai Iijima. 

 Ai Iijima

Although aimed at a male consumer base, Gilgamesh Night actually mainly attracted a female audience intent on looking like their Bodikon idols. VHS Tapes of Bodikon women and their dance moves were also popular sources of inspiration, and during the peak of the boom in 1993 sold incredibly well. The late-night TV specials and the Juliana’s Live late-night TV show, alongside the Techno CD albums which Juliana’s Tokyo released (as the first disco to mix session CDs in six volumes) became gigantic cultural staples all across Japan. Released in volumes from 1992 to 1994, they sold like crazy, having sales of 1 million copies and being a large part of the disco’s profit since the disco itself wasn’t very profitable as a business model despite the huge visitor numbers of up to 5,000 a night during its peak. They also came with a free ticket to Juliana’s, resulting in many people attempting to flood into Juliana’s using their album tickets. Female elementary, junior high and high school students were notoriously known to use their sofas as mini otachidai while the TV displayed the Juliana’s Live TV Specials, and they would shake their Juli fans while dressed in Bodikon, all over the country, especially on Halloween. These young girls attempting to be Bodikon women would end up forming the basis for Kogal later on. 

For those who engaged in Bodikon however, it was much more than just the latest fashion. The body was adorned in order to be made into a spectacle, with an emphasis on collective sensation. Being a Bodikon was a subcultural affiliation that determined many girls’ identities and self-hoods, and the idea of a subculture of fashion centred around women that would go onto to become the central focus of Gyaru, developed in Bodikon circles. These Disco Queens as they became referred to would after work meet their fellow Bodikon friends, go shopping for (often designer/luxury) clothes in Shibuya, particularly at Shibuya’s luxury 109 shopping mall, and change into their Bodikon clothing, famously in the train station bathrooms of Tamachi station. You could see scenes like this broadcast on Japanese national television at the time.

The Maharaja chain of discothéques was also hugely influential on the style, especially in the style’s earlier 1980s years. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were some 60 Maharaja discos in Japan, with flagship Maharaja Gion known as "the best disco in the East." It was here that the fan-waving trend popular in the aesthetic started, when maiko (young Geisha) would go to the local Gion branch of Maharaja carrying feathered fans. Bodikon fashion was encouraged to flourish at the Maharaja as it earned Bodikon women free admission on Ladies’ Nights. Increasingly from 1987 onwards, women would dance in synchronised dance routines called Para-Para or more often at this point a hyper-Techno form of it, later known as TechPara. Para-Para/TechPara first emerged from the 1985 song Take On Me by A-ha in the early days of the Bubble. People at Maharaja started to dance by fluttering their hands along with the lyrics of the song, and some people would match their dancing with each other. This kind of dancing took off and spread to every disco in the Tokyo area. The staff at each disco started creating their own routines to songs, and customers went to discos so they could see the routines and learn them. TechPara was similar to Para-Para, being choreographed, synchronised dancing using the hands and arms. Maharaja as such was known for the First Para-Para boom (mid-to-late 1980s), while Juliana’s became associated with the Second Para-Para boom (Early 1990s).

The First Para-Para boom flourished until a notorious incident in the recently-opened Turia discothéque in Roppongi on January 5th, 1988, when a falling light killed 3 people in the disco. After this, the first Para-Para dancing wave ended, and the more extreme second Para-Para boom began. Wearing their Bodikon fashion, women (especially in Juliana’s) would often dance a mixture of freestyle dancing (influenced by the rave scene in the West) and this new Para dancing, on the otachidai. The otachidai had a height of about 130cm, and was installed on both sides of the dance hall. The sexy dancing on the Otachidai, the focal point of the disco, often drove male crowds crazy, which Bodikon women found pleasure in: Savouring their sexuality and leaving men powerless against the powerful, desirable woman. The Japanese media covered this extravagant partying extensively: On average, 20 TV Crews a day, alongside the late-night TV shows, newspaper reports, interviews and even overseas media coverage, angering Traditionalists in the ruling political party: The LDP. Juliana’s in particular was believed to ruffle official feathers in Japan, because some people believed that the women's appearance and behavior was immoral. The media would continue to give Juliana’s heavy air coverage regardless of what influential Traditionalists in the government felt, creating visiting Juliana’s into a major status symbol, and spurred on by the defeat of the LDP government in the 1993 election for the first time since 1955, created the impression of a break with the traditionally Japanese post-war norms.

Despite the burst of the Bubble Economy in early 1992, the Bodikon subculture continued to prevail. At the time, Japan was in a sense of complete denial about the economic burst and continued to party on as if nothing had happened. In fact, it took until early 1993 for the Japanese government to admit the Bubble had burst. In 1992, Juliana’s continued to soar to rapid fame and the fashion began to grow more and more extreme. The year 1993 is generally considered to have been the peak year for the style. By then, the Bodikon women were so numerous, the media coverage was so intense, and the excess was so extreme that nearly every aspect of Japanese popular culture was affected by Bodikon women. From the late-night TV specials airing every night that drew tens of millions of viewers, to infinite references in manga to the weekly tabloids detailing black and white pictures of the latest pasty-wearing women on the otachidais to the fashions even older women were donning by this point. By this point, some of the crazier Juliana's fashion looked like a strip show. Girls were one step away from being completely naked, wearing pasties and string panties. Other parts of the country such as Nagoya and Kyoto were strongly inspired by the Juliana's boom and the discos with locations there such as King & Queen and Maharaja were even more extreme apparently, attempting to outdo the excess at Juliana’s: For just 100 yen (significantly cheaper than the Juliana’s fee), you could dance practically naked! This encouraged the development of a phenomenon called radicalisation, where the Bodikon fashion began to become very extreme. At the time, there were many prominent celebrities that embraced Bodikon fashion that entered the public eye. These Bodikon celebrities were often sexy tarento (タレント), which are notable television personalities in Japan, especially appearing as panellists on variety shows. Sexy tarento would be highly popular in the early 1990s. Others included models, gravure idols, and AV stars (what is notable is that Bodikon women often had links to the AV industry in Japan). 

By mid-1993, the radicalisation of Bodikon style was getting beyond extreme - even in Juliana’s itself, which was markedly more modest compared to some of the other discos, and complaints were beginning to come in. Complaints from the neighbors included reports of rowdiness, girls changing into their Bodikon outfits in the alleys surrounding the disco, and in June 1993, a Tokyo magazine published photos (staged with professional models, the disco's management insisted) of nearly nude women dancing on the otachidai. An atmosphere of chaos was prevailing through the discos by this point. Women saw dancing on the otachidai as a competition to compete for men and outdo each other, contributing to the rise of radical outfits to attract the most attention. People used to fight for a place on the otachidai, elbowing each other and get in each other's way on purpose, and girls would pull each other's hair and burn each other with their cigarettes. Other women whacked other women off the otachidai with their Juli fans. Additionally, the radical Bodikon fashion was now including public exposure of panties. On a special of the late-night TV show Gilgamesh Night, a tarento stripped down in public in central Tokyo to her underwear, and famously sometime in late 1993, a woman took off all of her clothes in a frenzy on the otachidai in Juliana’s in an impromptu strip-tease, nearly causing a riot on the dance floor. The (iconic) black and white photos of the incident ended up in one of Japan’s weekly magazines and resulted in Juliana’s management being summoned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department for a meeting in November 1993. A police official who attended the meeting said: "We gave instructions that the otachidai is not a preferable place for customers to dance..." According to Yoshinori Kasano, Juliana's chief business manager, the disco's management had also been thinking of imposing limits on the displays of flesh. In December 1993, Juliana's removed the otachidai and replaced it with a crystal stage on which professional dancers were to perform, and a dress code was instituted prohibiting excessively revealing clothes. 

girls on the otachidai

Resulting from these incidents and now the crackdown on radical Bodikon by Juliana’s, from late 1993 people got the wrong idea that you could see girls stripping there, and so more and more perverted people as well as an invasion of girls from the countryside keen to see what all the fuss was about, who were often less sophisticated dancers. Because of this, attendance quickly dropped from 5,000 at a night at the peak of the boom to just 250 a night by early 1994. Bodikon was increasingly assumed to be a fashion of strippers. This probably wasn’t helped by the fact that numerous women in the AV industry were prominent Bodikon women. Bodikon gals responded to the Juliana’s crackdown by frequenting even more extreme discos. These included Ronde Club in Akasaka, which became very popular at the end of 1993 and early 1994. Here, the most radical of Bodikon gals were to be found: an S&M theme was pronounced in the disco’s style, with whips used as dance accessories by the gals, and women wore O-Back underwear, which exposed their buttocks. Other Juliana’s customers, disappointed by the loss of the disco as a status symbol, began frequenting other discos such as Maharaja and King & Queen, resulting in a new revival of Eurobeat music.

Battered by the lack of business, Juliana’s attempted to give out large numbers of discount tickets and tried to get more customers to come but they were unable to get influential customers such as celebrities and wealthy Tokyoites like before. Bad influence on the club accelerated and they were only able to attract customers who didn't want to spend much money, and so the quality of customers went down and down. As the Juliana’s crackdown continued, they were also criticised for branding women who weren’t that radical in dress-code as radical and therefore banning them. A notable example of this was Kumiko Araki, arguably one of the most famous of the Bodikon celebrities. 

 Kumiko Araki

She stated that she never danced in her underwear, however was branded radical and was banned from entering the disco; this meant that she was not allowed entry to Juliana’s closing night in August 1994. In early 1994, Juliana’s announced it was to close at the end of August 1994, in order to prevent the legendary name of Juliana’s Tokyo being "tainted" by recent occurrences.

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DECLINE 

**the information here is also from the Aesthetics wiki Bodikon article!**

A variety of reasons can be also attributed to Bodikon’s decline, all largely tied to the bursting of the Japanese Bubble Economy. These included the sudden loss of a large leisure income making luxury brands unaffordable, the decline of the optimism surrounding the Japanese economy, the closure of many clubs in the Roppongi area, as well as the decline of the company in the centralisation of Japanese life (as partying such as this was hugely based around company hours and often paid for by the company). The influence of Bodikon style can be seen in the mid-to-late 1990s styles of Gyaru, where the party-influenced culture and sexiness appeal is reflected. Additionally, many of the pioneers of Gyaru originally started out dancing in the Juliana’s discothéque, where lots of influence came from. 

After Juliana’s Tokyo, the last major hold-out of the style and of Bubble culture in general, closed on August 31st, 1994, Bodikon quickly vanished. With no central meeting area for Bodikon women left by September 1994, there was little justification to continue gathering in Bodikon circles. Shortly after, on September 2nd, 1994, it was reported Japanese drug agents arrested the American-born president of Juliana’s Tokyo, Gary Wayne Callicott, and his girlfriend Michi Tsuchihashi for possession of $500 worth of illegal drugs, by coincidence on the same day the disco closed. With the name of Juliana’s already placed in bad press throughout 1994, suddenly there was now another bad association with Juliana’s and by extension Bodikon culture. In late 1994, Bodikon diverged into differing Gal styles, forming the birth of today’s Gyaru. The younger Bodikon women, mostly teenage girls trying to emulate the sexiness and sophistication of Bodikon culture were now by this point taking on a more schoolgirl aesthetic, encouraged to rebel by the growing moral panic in post-bubble Japan over enjō-kōsai (compensated dating) and schoolgirl sexuality, a symbol of the materialistic decay Japan’s national character seemed to have experienced. As such, while it had been socially acceptable to be a schoolgirl wearing Bodikon, dancing on an otachidai in the early 1990s, now that Juliana’s had closed the Japanese moral consciousness was beginning to recognise the Bubble was over, and with it came a sobering of morality. These younger Bodikon women and their growing interest in portraying themselves as rebellious schoolgirls, defying the moral panic and merging the adult-like nature of Bodikon women with the portrayed innocence of schoolgirls would end up forming the first post-Bodikon Gal style, Kogal. Other Bodikon women, especially those women who were the Radical Bodikon gyaru, were more interested in the values of extreme tanning that had developed in the culture around 1993-1994. With the Okinawan-born singer Namie Amuro receiving a lot of attention by late 1994 for her distinctive tan, it seemed that tanning was still trendy and popular. 

Namie Amuro

As such, radical Bodikon women continued to radicalise in their look after 1994, eventually getting to the point where by the mid-to-late 1990s it was so incredibly extreme it had formed its own Gal style, called Ganguro. Other Bodikon women, especially the older women who had emerged during the mid-to-late 1980s, were reaching their Japanese "marriage age" or generally becoming middle aged by the end of 1994. As such, encouraged by the "employment ice age" that had emerged by this point post-Bubble, many simply left their OL jobs and became housewives. The style however continued to survive in a (gradually getting smaller and smaller) number. Evidence for this visibly exists in the late 1994 and early 1995 volumes of Heaven’s Door, where Bodikon women and Tokyo’s disco culture are evidently portrayed. In December 1994, a successor club to Juliana’s, Velfarre, opened, led by the same DJ as Juliana’s, DJ John Robinson. At first, Bodikon women seemed to dominate the club, however by March 1995, when the last Heaven’s Door volume was published, it was evident the culture was on its way out, if not had already made its exit; this was seen by Velfarre playing much more Trance music, a symbol of the growing mid-1990s Gal movement, instead of the more Bodikon-associated Techno (avex trax in the mid-1990s invested its money in Trance music and House music instead of Techno). By early 1995, when the Japanese public was left shocked by the lack of government action and widespread destruction during the Great Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe (the city’s infrastructure had been promised during the Bubble to be "Earthquake resistant"), as well as the terrorism of doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo terrorising the nation in the Tokyo Subway attacks, it was clear the mental image of the Bubble had been shattered, and with it, the culture of decadence and excess. By the mid-1990s, Bodikon were described as an "isolated tribe," surviving in very small circles, and in 1995 the term Juliana was mentioned to be "dead," with the term Bodikon gaining a more sexually-related meaning. However, in a 2002 article, there is mention of "Bodikon style." Whether this was a later Gyaru style that simply adopted the term or a small continuation of Bodikon disco culture, however, is left a mystery.

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MODERN BODIKON

although Bodikon is definitely on the decline, some people still engage with the style! with the resurgence of gyaru as a whole and the modern popularity of city pop, it's only a matter of time before Bodikon has a large scale renaissance like gyaru has experienced in recent years. japanese idol duo BED IN are currently trying to revive Bodikon, and they have been active since 2012. information about them can be found in the resources section!

 modern Bodikon

Bed In

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RESOURCES:

Bodikon | Aesthetics Wiki - x

this is where i got the information for the MUSIC & NIGHTLIFE and DECLINE sections! i highly recommend reading this article, it is so insanely detailed and well-done.

Bodikon, Media | Aesthetics Wiki - x

a comprehensive list of Bodikon media!

Bodikon, Resources | Aesthetics Wiki - x

a comprehensive list of Bodikon resources (magazines, books, etc.)!

Bed In | Japanese Music Wiki - x

information on the Bodikon idol duo! i highly recommend checking them out!

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at last, it is finished! this turned out to be wayyy longer than i anticipated, but i had so much fun researching and reading about Bodikon that i couldnt resist! but i know this was a behemoth to read, so if you made it this far, thank you so very much for reading!! this is by far my favorite blog to date, so i hope you all enjoy~ this has inspired me to give the style a try, and i hope some of you resonated with this fairly obscure substyle of gyaru! i'm holding my 4 year spacehey anniversary Q&A tomorrow at 5:00 PM EST, so feel free to send in some questions through the link i posted on my bulletins! i'll also post blog topic voting on sunday, so feel free to comment or IM me with topic suggestions!! also feel free to comment whatever you like~ thank you all again for reading and supporting me~!

remember, antama loves you~! 

kiss kiss~ ☆⌒ヽ(*'､^*)chu