Saturday, March 30, 2019

Gyarufication

NSFW : this article may contain words or images you'd rather not have your boss see.

Gyarufication, in Japanese gyaru-ka ギャル化, is the process of turning a character (or person) into a gyaru ギャル, in spin-offs, fan art or doujinshi 同人誌, or of a character turning into a gyaru by themselves, canonically within a series.

Jyushimatsu 十四松 and his genderbent, gyarufied version: Jyushiko 十四子.
Left: Jyushimatsu 十四松
Right: Jyushiko 十四子
Anime: Osomatsu-san おそ松さん (Episode 15, Collage)

Definition

Gyarufication is literally just about characters turning into gyaru, which is mix between fashion style and life-style, like punk or emo. However, there are various types of gyaru, and there are stereotypes attributed to gyaru, too.

Aguri 亜玖璃 reads fashion magazines.
Character: Aguri 亜玖璃
Anime: Gamers!, ゲーマーズ! (Episode 2)

The stereotype is that gyaru are vain. They like gaudy accessories and standing out in the crowd. They avoid conformity, uniforms, suits, serious clothing. So they're seen as easygoing, sloppy, sleazy. and promiscuous.

Aiura Mikoto 相卜命, example of gyaru ギャル character.
Character: Aiura Mikoto 相卜命
Anime: Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan 2 斉木楠雄のΨ難 2 (Episode 8)
  • Accessories. Accessories everywhere.

Since they need money to buy their clothes but lack the seriousness to hold a stable career or perhaps even a stable relationship, it's assumed they get that money from sugar daddies, prostitution, and so on.

Anime: Puni Puni☆Poemii ぷにぷに☆ぽえみぃ (Episode 2)

  • enjo kousai
    援助交際
    Paid dating, or amateur prostitution, specially with high school girls, JKs.

In high school, they hang with delinquents, gangs. They smoke or drink, despite of being underage. Their manner of speaking is full of crass slangs. It's assumed that gyaru are sluts, who would have sex with anyone if they asked, so gyaru and virgin are basically antonyms.

  • bicchi
    ビッチ
    "Bitch." (literally.)
    Slut. (in Japanese.)
  • nikushokukei
    肉食系
    Carnivore.
    Someone, specially a woman, who assertively goes after romantic partners and takes the lead in a relationship.

Of course those are all stereotypes, and pretty horrible ones, to be honest. Real-life gyaru aren't necessarily like that, but given such stereotypes, gyarufication tends to be a hentai pornographic sub-genre. A Japanese equivalent for "bimbofication," turning a character into a "bimbo."

Male Variant

The term gyaru-o ギャル男, "gyaru man," is the male equivalent of gyaru, so male gyarufication would be gyaru-o-ka ギャル男化.

Something like Jyushimatsu turning into Jyushiko is just gyaru-ka, not gyaru-o-ka. It just happens that Jyushimatsu is male, so you also end up with him turning female, or "female-body-fication," nyotaika 女体化.

Also note that ~ko ~子 is a common suffix for female names: Yoshiko, Yuuko, Hanako, Aiko, etc.

Racism

Gyarufication is sometimes mistakenly thought to be racist, because it often takes a white-skinned girl and turns her into a slutty black-skinned girl, and the darker the skin is the sluttier she turns out to be.

You don't need to be a statistician to see the correlation between darker skin and promiscuity here.

The reason this happens is because the most obvious and therefore most well-known type of gyaru is the kuro-gyaru 黒ギャル, "black gyaru."

In order to stand out in a Japanese, Asian, white-skinned crowd, around the year 2000, girls were painting their face black using makeup, or going to tanning salons to get a dark tan. A practice called ganguro ガングロ.

Among such gyaru, those that went for even darker colors were called bachiguro バチグロ, and so on.

Some wanted to stand out ever further, so they used white makeup on their faces over the black face, bleached hair, or colored hair, and so on. Such makeup was called manba マンバ and yamanba ヤマンバ.

Sumiyoshi Kanako 住吉加奈子, example of ganguro ガングロ.
Character: Sumiyoshi Kanako 住吉加奈子
Anime: Nyan Koi! にゃんこい! (Episode 2, Rotated)

In order to stand out more in a crowd of white people, they used flashier makeup. And the flashier it is, the stronger the "slut" stereotype. It just happens the color of the makeup was black. So it isn't a racist thing, it's a "that just happens to look racist" thing.

There are other things that stand out, like piercings and tattoos, and some gyaru may have them. In particular, tattoos used to be used by the yakuza and other such gangs, specially those that covered the back and limbs, like sleeve tattoos, so there's a criminal stereotype attached to that.

There are other types of gyaru that don't feature dark skin, and therefore are less noticeable. For example, a kogyaru コギャル is a "high-school gyaru."

Aguri 亜玖璃 and Uehara Tasuku 上原祐 turning into gyaru ギャル.
Girl: Aguri 亜玖璃
Boy: Uehara Tasuku 上原祐
Anime: Gamers!, ゲーマーズ! (Episode 2, Collage)

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