Kogal

[1] These high school girls are characterized by the typical bleached hair, make-up, shortened skirts, and wearing of loose socks.

Aside from the miniskirt or microskirt, and the loose socks, kogals favor platform boots, makeup, and Burberry check scarves, and accessories considered kawaii or cute on bags and phones.

Some kogals support their lifestyle with allowances from wealthy parents, living a "parasite single" existence that grates against traditional principles of duty and industry.

"[11] Others have charged that the kogal phenomenon is less about the girls and their fashions than a media practice to fetishize school uniforms and blame those required to wear them.

It was reported that the media coverage was framed as if all high school girls "were rushing to Shibuya and having sex with men in karaoke boxes just to buy luxury goods."

As such, the kogal style rejects not only tradition which Japan is known for but the spirit of nationalism, seeking to embody stateless consumerism.

This consumerism is communicated through knock-off designer goods, trips to photo booths, singing karaoke, partying, the use of love hotels, and incorporating new loanwords into everyday speech.

Kogals also take a transactional approach to sexual activity, employing more risque language or referring openly to sex.

While mainstream fashion in the 1980s and early 1990s emphasized girlish and cute (kawaii), gyaru publications promoted a sexy aesthetic.

[17] Top gyaru magazines, including Popteen, Street Jam and Happie Nuts, were produced by editors previously involved in creating pornography for men.

[17] Also in the 1980s, a male-and-female motorcycle-oriented slacker culture emerged in the form of the "Yankiis" (from the American word "Yankee") and Bosozoku Gals.

The original kogals were dropouts from private school who, instead of lengthening their skirts like androgynous Yankii girls, created a new form of teen rebellion by shortening them.

In the mid-1990s, the Japanese media gave a great deal of attention to the phenomenon of enjo kōsai ("paid dating") supposedly engaged in by bored housewives and high school students, thus linking kogals to prostitutes.

Kogals were then displaced by another style that gained popularity through Egg: ganguro, a gal culture that first appeared in the mid-1990s and used dark makeup combined with heavy amounts of tanning.

[27] Kogals are identified primarily by looks, but their speech, called kogyarugo (コギャル語), is also distinctive,[6] including, but not restricted to the following: ikemen (イケ面, "Cool dude"), chō-kawaii (超かわいい, "totally cute"),[6] gyaru-yatte (ギャルやって, "do the gal thing"), gyaru-fuku (ギャル服, "gal clothes"), gyaru-kei shoppu (ギャル系ショップ, "gal-style shop"), gyaru-do appu no tame ni (ギャル度アップのために, "increasing her degree of galness"), chō maji de mukatsuku (超マジでむかつく, "really super frustrating").

[6] As a way to celebrate their individuality, gals might say biba jibun (ビバ自分, "long live the self", derived from Viva and the Japanese word for "self").