By showing off their indolence and trying to project an image of a life lived idly, kogaru and ganguro make a point of bucking the national work ethic. They challenge the stereotype of the average Japanese worker -- stoic "sarariimen" (salary-men) and demure OLs stashed in airless offices shuffling paper for 10 hours a day, like post-industrial cogs in a machine -- by pretending they have nothing better to do than tan, get manicures, try on wigs, flirt and giggle.

However, even if they qualified as such, there is no ganguro manifesto that unites or incites these accidental radicals. According to many Japanese young people, the kogaru and ganguro subcultures are set apart from the mainstream largely by their sexualized schoolgirl or go-go attire, and not by any distinct system of beliefs. Are these girls, with their stage makeup, body piercings and over-the-top costumes, setting out to make a dramatic statement against Japanese conformity? Or, as skeptics maintain, have the ganguro hairstyles, makeup and clothing already become a new kind of uniform?

"I hate them," exclaims 24-year-old Keiko Suzuki, assistant director of a club music program on Tokyo's MTV. "They are always at clubs like Pylon, dressed head to toe in the club's colors, dancing with each other only. They are another culture completely. I can't understand them at all. They are only show, no substance."

And while the color of their skin lends them a group identity and ganguro label, they seem to give little thought to the historical or sociological implications of their so-called blackface. An advertisement for the tanning salon "Blacky" in Egg magazine shows a close-up of a pretty African-American girl, beckoning to the reader with a crooked index finger. The italicized caption reads, "Come wid mi," -- a Japanese stab at "black English." Asked why they work so hard on their tans, why they want so desperately to approximate "black America," every ganguro I interviewed gave the same curt and unexamined answer: Because it's cool, because it's sexy.

In the words of resident high school English teacher Jenna Levy, "No one buys tall boots alone." You buy them with your friends and you wear them with your friends; it has to be a group decision or else you're going to look ridiculous. Both kogaru and ganguro are indisputable pack animals. Together they tower over the flat-heeled and the demure. Egg magazine displays spread upon spread of ganguro in groups, shot from underneath to accentuate their long brown legs. In the photos, ganguro laugh hysterically or mug goofy faces at the camera. They remind me of the popular girls in high school, working hard at looking good, working hard at looking like they're having the time of their lives, demanding constant attention and totally unsure of what to do with it once they have it.

Although Keiko Suzuki hates the kogaru and ganguro and believes they belong to a culture entirely separate from her own, she readily admits that it's dress rather than life philosophy that sets them apart. Although they model their look after prominent African-American musicians and '60s activists, their behavior falls far short of rebellious. Even critics as harsh as Suzuki are quick to point out that "these are nice girls; strange, but nice."

Akari and Haruna are nice, cheerful, willing to answer all of my questions, eager to try out a few words of junior high English. Their bashful young masuta is also friendly and eager to please. Twenty-four years old, he says he's working at the Lullaby Club to save money for a plot of land. What he really wants to do is farm daikon radishes. Akari and Haruna have no future plans, but they definitely don't want to work as hostesses forever. Akari plans on staying in kogaru uniform for another year, tops. Haruna says she'll keep her image evolving with the current Egg styles. What they both know for sure is that they want to stay cute. "Itsumo kawaii."

Whenever I stop by my local grocery store to pick up a bag of fresh udon noodles or a block of tofu, I pause to chat for a moment with my favorite cashier. Hitomi has cheeks more round and pink than most kindergartners. Last year, she was a senior in my roommate's English class at the second-to-lowest-ranked high school in the prefecture (according to a list printed annually in the newspaper). Before graduation, she spoke excitedly of the job she'd landed in the city with the New Sankyu chain of grocery stores.

In Japan, when a person is hired by a company -- even as a gas station attendant or cashier -- it is said that he or she "belongs to" the employer. This brand of "belonging" implies equal measures of employee comfort and employer control. When Hitomi took the job in the city, she was quickly installed in the New Sankyu apartment complex, located directly behind the store. It is a dreary, cement-block "Melrose Place," populated entirely by clerks and store managers too exhausted for sex or scandal. The New Sankyu apartment stairwells are festooned with row after row of freshly washed aqua uniforms hung to dry on makeshift clotheslines.

When she was still a high school student, Hitomi was often in trouble for rolling up her skirt waistband and donning "rusu sokusu," kogaru style. These days, she wears a different kind of uniform. She is seldom out of her aquas, and is often too tired to bother with changing into street clothes when she gets off work. The last time I saw the usually ebullient Hitomi, she looked pale and slack, passing foodstuffs listlessly from basket to plastic bag.

"How are you?" I asked, going as usual for the one English question she's mastered.

"Very, very bad," she said, shaking her head and avoiding meeting my eyes.

"Doushitan?" I asked -- what's wrong? -- switching into a Japanese too hushed for her coworkers and neighbors to overhear.

"Ii koto ga nai," she said. "I have no good things." She proceeded to tell me what I had been waiting to hear since September. She had taken the job at New Sankyu to earn her own money and live away from her family in her own apartment in the city. At $6 per hour, however, she could barely afford to purchase the food she spent all day shelving. She had found no love, no excitement, few friends, since moving to Kanazawa from the country.

"I'm thinking," she whispered conspiratorially, "of becoming a ganguro. At least it's something new."

That's when I noticed the midnight-blue eyelashes.

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