Shuichiro Ogawa
日本語

Notes · updated 2026-08-15

Re-searching the Gaps in Gyaru Research: 71 Additions and the One Absence That Survived a Change of Route

The previous note, gyaru-culture-mindset-literature, mapped 61 sources and closed with a list of five gaps. No peer-reviewed research on Reiwa gyaru. Thin scholarly accumulation on ganguro and yamanba. No follow-up research on gyaru-o and gyaru circles. No study treating the “gyaru mind” critically as a discourse.

As noted there, these were “not found”, not proof of absence. This time the same four areas were re-searched along seven different routes. Seventy-one additional sources came back.

But the breakdown shows that the four gaps were not the same kind of thing. Two were never gaps at all; the earlier net simply did not reach them. One was half filled. And one still returned zero after five changes of route.

The corpus and provenance ledger live at source/review/gyaru-research-gaps/papers.md (internal to the repository, not published on the site).

Survey metadata

  • Collected: 2026-08-15 / Count: 71 (84 candidates, 2 merged pairs, 11 excluded). Combined with the previous 61, 132 distinct sources.
  • Collection route: seven parallel instances of source-researcher (profile: scholarly), followed by paper-screening-agent for cross-checking against the previous 61, bibliographic verification, and predatory-journal assessment. Governed by .claude/rules/collection-protocol.md.
  • Period: 1993 to 2026 (areas 1 and 3 prioritised 2015 onward; no date limit for theoretical frameworks).
  • Peer-review breakdown: 22 peer-reviewed, 38 non-peer-reviewed, 11 unclassified. Includes 9 theses, 9 university bulletins, 6 items from intellectual and literary magazines, and 6 trade books.
  • Quality flags: one item excluded on suspicion of predatory publishing (an article in SCIRP’s Advances in Applied Sociology). No signs of retraction.
  • Confidence note: 39 items whose bibliography could not be verified at first hand are marked [requires primary verification] and listed at the end. Chinese-language results were zero, but this reflects failure to reach the major databases (CNKI, Wanfang, Airiti, Taiwan NDLTD) rather than proof that no such research exists.

What was changed from last time

The previous round split the field into three language zones (English, Japanese, theoretical canon) and threw topic names at cross-database search APIs (OpenAlex, Crossref, Semantic Scholar). That net catches sources whose topic name appears in the title or abstract in English. It misses papers written only in Japanese in Japanese society journals, mentions buried as examples inside papers from other fields, and theses from non-English-speaking countries.

So this time the entry point was changed rather than the search terms.

  • Query CiNii Research and J-STAGE directly, and comb named Japanese society journals and conference proceedings
  • Enter Korean (RISS, KCI, DBpia) and Chinese-language (CNKI, Wanfang, Airiti, Taiwan NDLTD) databases
  • Comb Japan studies journals from the journal side, using Crossref’s container-title filter
  • Approach from fashion studies, consumer behaviour, tourism and urban studies, and cosmetics research
  • Look for mentions inside TikTok and platform research and internet aesthetics research
  • Sweep thesis repositories (OpenAIRE API, DiVA, LUP, NDL Search)
  • Follow critiques of positivity discourse as a dedicated track

The effect of changing the entry point differed sharply by area.

Where the Japanese-language research on ganguro and yamanba was

Last time this area was described as “the most visually extreme subculture, yet thinly treated in peer-reviewed journals”. What had turned up was one chapter by Kinsella and a handful of master’s theses.

Querying CiNii directly surfaced Japanese-language primary research.

Sumida Akiko, writing in 2008 in Shakaigaku Zasshi (Kobe University Sociological Society), analyses the ganguro style as a “window” that opens temporarily in the life course of Japanese women. It is a challenge to norms, but a challenge with an expiry date. This reading has exactly the same shape as Sato (Sakuma) Rika’s 2002 finding, discussed in the previous note, that readers of gyaru magazines held a “strong and free” self-image while knowing it was confined to their high-school years. In different years, in different scholarly communities, the same ambivalence was observed.

Yoshie Mami, writing in 2003 in Toshi Minzoku Kenkyu (Kokugakuin University), documents the birth and development of the Shibuya yamanba across 34 pages. Urban folklore studies is a field whose name never comes up in the genealogy of gyaru research.

Sato Maki, writing in 2003 in Art Research (Ritsumeikan University), places the performance artist Karen Finley alongside ganguro girls and compares them through the concept of “pleasure”.

All of these were written in Japanese between 2003 and 2008, carry no DOI, and do not surface under English topic names. The earlier verdict of “thin scholarly accumulation” described the net, not the object.

On the English side, one addition: Kerr, writing in 2025 in Fashion Highlight, discusses the re-evaluation of 1990s and 2000s Japanese youth fashion during the economic stagnation of the 2010s, and treats yamanba. Laura Miller’s 2020 Asian Studies Review article argues that body modification among Japanese youth cannot be reduced to “deracialisation”, since hair colour, eyes, and skin colour each carry a different cultural history; it reads as a response to Kinsella’s account of racialisation.

Who continued the work on gyaru-o and gyaru circles

Last time the note said “no research succeeding Saladin (2015) and Arai (2019) was found”.

That was an oversight produced by not searching by author name. Arai Yusuke had not stopped.

He published Gyaru to gyaru-o no bunka jinruigaku with Shinchosha in 2009, analysed the relation between neoliberalism and youth subcultures through Bourdieu in a 2016 Hitotsubashi University bulletin, and in 2021 contributed a chapter to Kimura Eriko et al.’s edited volume Basho kara tou wakamono bunka, describing how the gyaru and gyaru-o tribes of Shibuya Center-gai shifted “from a culture of gathering to a culture of sharing”. The 2019 doctoral dissertation was substantially expanded into a 2023 monograph, Wakamonotachi wa naze warusa ni miserareta no ka (Koyo Shobo), which was reviewed by Namba Koji in the Japan Sociological Society’s Shakaigaku Hyoron. In 2022 he wrote on the limits of transferring subcultural capital into related industries in a Meisei University bulletin, and in 2025 published an essay in Gendai Shiso treating the street as a “school”.

Saladin also had earlier Japanese-language work. In 2011 he published “Gender as depicted in gyaru-o magazines” in Musashi University’s bulletin Sociologist. The 2015 Contemporary Japan article is the English version, four years later, of that Japanese paper.

New connections turned up as well. Kostrzewski and Nowak, in a 2018 article in Economic and Environmental Studies, analyse Japanese men’s fashion magazines and list both gyaru-o kei and sōshokukei danshi in their keywords. Takeyama Akiko’s work on Tokyo host clubs (2008 doctoral dissertation, 2016 Stanford University Press monograph) does not take gyaru as its topic, but treats the commodification of masculinity in Shibuya’s night economy, and sits next to gyaru-o research.

This area does, however, carry a different kind of skew. Research on gyaru circles and event circles by Japanese scholars other than Arai returned zero even after changing routes. The accurate description is not “there is no follow-up research” but “the follow-up research is concentrated in one person”.

Whose comparison point is Reiwa gyaru

This area was only half filled.

Sonja Petrovic, writing in 2025 in Feminist Media Studies, gives a digital ethnography of the TikTok practices of Japanese women aged 18 to 25. The article reads practices such as the fusion of kawaii and erokawa, the manipulation of AI filters, and “busakawa” selfies as a refusal of normative femininity. It defines gyaru and ganguro in a footnote and states in the body that “similar practices of ‘deviant’ or unconventional gender expressions are found in Japanese gyaru and ganguro fashion subcultures, rebelling against beauty standards and social norms as a form of feminist resistance”. Gyaru is not the topic. It is the comparison point.

My von Weissenberg’s 2026 bachelor’s thesis (Dalarna University) compares slang in the November 2000 and Autumn/Winter 2024 issues of Egg, reporting that Reiwa gyaru-go shows a decrease both in sexually connotated vocabulary and in the total volume of slang. This was the only empirical diachronic comparison of the Heisei and Reiwa periods.

At the same time, a strong absence was confirmed. TikTok aesthetics research now has a body of literature classifying “cores” (aesthetic categories such as cottagecore, dark academia, coquette, and clean girl). A 2023 First Monday article analyses 24 samples drawn from AestheticsWiki, and gyaru appears in it not once. The same holds for articles on the Y2K revival. Gyaru has no position within the classificatory system of internet aesthetics.

And Japanese-language peer-reviewed articles taking the terms “Reiwa gyaru” or “neo-gyaru” as their topic remained at zero in both CiNii and J-STAGE.

How Korean-language scholarship has treated gyaru

An independent line of research emerged from a route that was not touched at all last time.

Sim Hee-chan, writing in 2026 in the East Asian Japanology Association’s Journal of Japanese Culture, traces the genealogy by which the concept of gyaru differentiated from “young women in general” in the 1970s into kogyaru, ganguro, gonguro, yamanba, and manba, and treats cosmetics and bodily transformation as a philosophical form of self-expression. Moon Jung Eun and Jeon Yeun Suk, in 2011 in the Korean Society of Costume’s Journal, organised the variations of gyaru makeup and empirically surveyed how cosmetology students perceived them. Choi Eun-mi, in the same year, classified gyaru makeup into five styles: Go, Mama, B, Ohne, and Hime.

Where Japanese scholarship has treated gyaru as an object of sociology and media studies, Korean-language scholarship has treated it as an object of cosmetology and design studies. Kim Si-Man’s 2007 article goes so far as to extract the formal elements of gyaru fashion and propose applying them to product and interior design development. This arrangement does not look unrelated to the central observation of the previous note: that on the Japanese side, the first to operationalise the “gyaru mind” were design studies and HCI.

Three master’s theses were also found. Kim Go-eun (Konkuk University, 2014) organises gyaru makeup and hair into five internal meanings: rebelliousness, the negation of traditional beauty, treating cosmetics as play, longing for the West, and vicarious satisfaction. This is a kind of description no one has written on the Japanese side.

Chinese-language results were zero. That result cannot be used as a judgement of absence, since the major databases could not be reached.

Where research reading the gyaru mind as discourse stands

Only the fourth area still returned zero after five changes of route.

Three kinds of literature turned up, and none of them is what is being sought.

First, there is research critically analysing Japanese self-help discourse. Makino Tomokazu, building on his 2011 Waseda University dissertation, analysed self-help books through cultural sociology in Jiko keihatsu no jidai (Keiso Shobo, 2012), and in Nichijo ni shinnyu suru jiko keihatsu (2015) followed the discourse into planner techniques and tidying methods. His 2017 article in Sport Sociology Research analyses where the imagination comes from that working on parts of the body will solve the problems of a life. Koike Yasushi systematised therapeutic culture as a sociology of psychologisation in Serapi bunka no shakaigaku (2007). Yamada Yoko and Okahara Masayuki, through the concept of “emotional capitalism”, discuss the process by which mental ill-health comes to be treated as risk and cost. Takahashi Yuki, in 2020, read the discourse of “joshi-ryoku” (girl power) critically as a politics of women’s subjectivation.

The tools were assembled far closer at hand than Harris and Illouz, cited in the previous note: in Japanese, on Japanese cases. But neither Makino nor Koike touches gyaru.

Second, there is a body of theory critiquing Western positivity and empowerment discourse. Rosalind Gill and colleagues empirically analysed the postfeminist sensibility embedded in workplaces (2017), and Gill and Orgad traced how the norm of “resilience” is constituted across three cases: women’s magazines, self-help books, and smartphone apps (2018). Banet-Weiser analysed the commodification of empowerment discourse (2018), and Rottenberg critiqued “lean-in” style self-responsibility feminism (2018). Ehrenreich, Davies, Cederström and Spicer, and Cabanas and Illouz each critiqued positive thinking, the happiness industry, and the mandate of wellness from a different angle. As method, these are precisely the type of analysis being sought. But the objects are all Western corporations and media, with not one Japanese-language case.

Third, peer-reviewed academic work using the term “gyaru mind” does exist. It is Yoshida Rio’s 2022 Japanese Society for the Science of Design presentation and the series of studies by Ikegami Momoka and colleagues, both covered in the previous note. But these stand on the opposite side from critique. Yoshida proposes design practice that follows the definition of the gyaru mind in order to change society and education, and Ikegami and colleagues take the low self-esteem of Japanese youth as given and implement the gyaru mind as a resource for improving mood. How Ikegami and colleagues built their operationalization, and where its limits lie, is examined against the full texts in gyaru-mind-operationalization. So these two are not “prior work in critical analysis”; they are the object that a critical analysis would take, once one appears.

Research critiquing Japanese self-help in general, theory critiquing Western positivity discourse, and primary material constructing the gyaru mind affirmatively. The three sit on the same desk, but no study connecting them has yet been written.

As a supplementary check, research questioning the discourse of “self-affirmation” (jiko kōtei-kan) itself was also sought. On CiNii, the queries “self-affirmation discourse critique”, “self-affirmation international comparison measurement”, and “Cabinet Office White Paper on Children and Young People self-affirmation critique” all returned zero. The nearest item is Haraguchi Yoshinori’s 2023 essay in a coaching practitioner journal, “May a coach tell a client that their self-affirmation is low?”, which raises doubt from practice rather than examining measurement validity academically. The proposition that “Japanese young people have low self-affirmation” has empirical support from Ogihara and colleagues (see the previous note), while no literature academically examining the measurement and the translation equivalence of its international comparisons has been found.

Absence comes in four kinds

What this re-search, and the tracing that followed it, allow one to say is that “not found” can name four different states of affairs.

Absence of a search route: the object exists, but the entry point used does not reach it. Ganguro and yamanba (buried in Japanese society journals) and gyaru-o and gyaru circles (continuing, if one follows the author name) fall here. The earlier verdict was wrong, and this round corrects it.

Absence of topicalisation: mentions of the object exist, but no study takes it as a topic. Reiwa gyaru falls here. Petrovic’s TikTok research positions gyaru accurately as a comparison point, but does not make the present of gyaru its topic. That internet aesthetics has no seat for gyaru in its classificatory system is another appearance of the same state of affairs.

Absence of a connection: both the tools of analysis and the object to be analysed exist in sufficient quantity, but no study joins them. Critical discourse analysis of the gyaru mind falls here. Only this third kind failed to narrow when the route was changed.

Absence of a citation followed (added 2026-08-15): there was a fourth. The object existed and had already reached us, and we did not follow it.

Motode Rino’s “An Examination of the Effects of the ‘Heisei Gal’ Mindset on Contemporary Women” (Bulletin of the School of Sociology, Kwansei Gakuin University 141, 2023) falls here. Its existence was known to us from the reference list of Ikegami and colleagues’ own WISS 2025 version. We nonetheless published the conclusion that engineering had measured gyaru mind first, leaving the work in “unverified items” without consulting its full text.

In fact a study building a four-factor scale on 1,487 respondents, tested for reliability and criterion-related validity, preceded that work by two years (summarised in gyaru-mind-aspiration-scale). The correction is recorded in gyaru-mind-operationalization.

The first three kinds are problems of search design. This one is not. It is a failure of procedure: not following the reference list of a work already in hand. Widening the search to seven routes does not narrow an absence of this kind. What narrows it is the plain work of following the citations in what you have already found.

  1. Sumida Akiko, “A fleeting challenge to the culture of femininity” (2008). Japanese-language primary research on ganguro that reaches, by a different route, the same ambivalence as Sato (Sakuma) Rika 2002.
  2. Arai Yusuke, Wakamonotachi wa naze warusa ni miserareta no ka (2023). The expanded version of the 2019 dissertation, and the high-water mark of this area.
  3. Petrovic, “(Un)Girly girls” (2025). A working example of how present-tense social media research handles gyaru as a comparison point.
  4. Makino Tomokazu, Jiko keihatsu no jidai (2012). Any analysis of gyaru-mind discourse has to start from this Japanese-language framework.
  5. Gill & Orgad, “The Amazing Bounce-Backable Woman” (2018). A form of analysis across women’s magazines, self-help books, and apps that transfers directly.
  6. Sim Hee-chan, “Gyaru as thought” (2026). A rewriting of the gyaru genealogy from outside the Japanese-language sphere.

References

URLs and DOIs were all retrieved on 2026-08-15. Items whose bibliography could not be verified at first hand are marked [requires primary verification].

Reiwa gyaru, the Y2K revival, and gyaru practice on social media

  1. Kazui Yasuko. 2021. Y2K Fashion × Body neutral. University bulletin 18, 36. [requires primary verification] (journal name and URL unconfirmed)
  2. von Weissenberg, My. 2026. The differences between Heisei gyaru-go and Reiwa gyaru-go: Examining slang in Egg magazine. Dalarna University (bachelor’s thesis). http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-52921
  3. Kerr, Hui-Ying. 2025. Lolitas, Mountain Witches and Sexy Gals. Fashion Highlight 5, 102–111. https://doi.org/10.36253/fh-3531
  4. Cameron, Don. 2000. Off-the-Rack Identities: Japanese Street Fashion Magazines and the Commodification of Style. Japanese Studies 20(2), 179–187. https://doi.org/10.1080/713683780 [requires primary verification] (abstract not retrieved)
  5. Riansyah, Faris Hazazi & Haryanti, Pitri. 2022. Karakteristik Street Fashion Gyaru. MAHADAYA 2(2). https://doi.org/10.34010/mhd.v2i2.8269
  6. Petrovic, Sonja. 2025. (Un)Girly girls: reimagining femininity on Japanese TikTok. Feminist Media Studies (advance online publication), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2025.2573727
  7. Corcoran, K. 2018. Wild Gals and Delusional Girls: Discursive and Linguistic Practices of Japanese Alternative Women’s Fashion Magazines. Doctoral dissertation. [requires primary verification] (institution unidentified, URL unreachable)

Ganguro, yamanba, and manba

  1. Sumida Akiko. 2008. A fleeting challenge to the culture of femininity: the ganguro style as an “open window” in the life course of Japanese women. Shakaigaku Zasshi 25, 72–85. https://da.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/da/kernel/81011084
  2. Sato Maki. 2003. Exploring ‘Pleasure’: Karen Finley and ‘Ganguro’ Girls. Art Research 3, 151–156. http://hdl.handle.net/10367/2819
  3. Yoshie Mami. 2003. The yamanba of Shibuya: their birth and development. Toshi Minzoku Kenkyu 9, 13–46. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1520009407498408960
  4. Komorida Akio. 2004. Changing labour market, ganguro and …. Trends in the Sciences 9(10), 82–83. https://doi.org/10.5363/tits.9.10_82 [requires primary verification] (full text unconfirmed)
  5. Miller, Laura. 2020/2021. Deracialisation or Body Fashion? Cosmetic Surgery and Body Modification in Japan. Asian Studies Review 45(2), 217–237. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2020.1764491
  6. Yoshikawa, Yurina. 2021. Beautiful “Looks” Created by Women. University of Massachusetts Amherst (master’s thesis). https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2/1082 [requires primary verification] (full text unreachable)
  7. Ibáñez Santiago, Juan Francisco. 2025. Rebelión contra los cánones de belleza: Análisis sociológico del estilo ganguro gyaru. Universidad de Granada. https://hdl.handle.net/10481/104720 [requires primary verification] (degree type undetermined, unreachable)

Gyaru-o, gyaru circles, host clubs, and masculinity

  1. Arai Yusuke. 2016. Neoliberalism and subcultures in contemporary Japan. Hitotsubashi Kenkyu 41(1-2-3), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.15057/29817
  2. Arai Yusuke. 2025. Capital acquired in a place of belonging: what capital did young people gain in the “school” of the street? Gendai Shiso 53(4), 201–218. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1522274566110525696
  3. Arai Yusuke. 2023. Wakamonotachi wa naze warusa ni miserareta no ka: an ethnography of the young people hanging around Shibuya Center-gai. Koyo Shobo. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1970867909851138357
  4. Kimura Eriko, Kutsuwada Ryuzo & Makino Tomokazu (eds.), Arai Yusuke (ch. 3). 2021. Basho kara tou wakamono bunka: youth theory in the post-urbanisation era. Koyo Shobo. https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BC06370190 [requires primary verification] (chapter title and page range unconfirmed)
  5. Saladin, Ronald. 2011. Gender as depicted in gyaru-o magazines. Musashi Shakaigaku Ronshu: Sociologist 13(1), 197–230. http://repository.musashi.ac.jp/dspace/handle/11149/276
  6. Kostrzewski, Mariusz & Nowak, Wojciech. 2018. Evolution of male self-expression. The socio-economic phenomenon as seen in Japanese men’s fashion magazines. Economic and Environmental Studies 18(1), 211–248. https://doi.org/10.25167/ees.2018.45.13
  7. Takeyama, Akiko. 2016. Staged Seduction: Selling Dreams in a Tokyo Host Club. Stanford University Press. (Based on the doctoral dissertation “The Art of Seduction and Affect Economy”, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008.) [requires primary verification] (book URL unreachable)
  8. Arai Yusuke. 2022. The use and limits, in related industries, of capital acquired in youth subcultures. Meisei University Sociology Research Bulletin 42, 1–20. [requires primary verification] (URL unreachable)
  9. Arai Yusuke. 2009. Gyaru to gyaru-o no bunka jinruigaku. Shinchosha. [requires primary verification] (URL unreachable)

Korean-language gyaru research

  1. Sim Hee-chan. 2026. Gyaru as thought: on the cosmetics of existence. Journal of Japanese Culture 98, 29–54. https://doi.org/10.18075/jcs..98.202604.029
  2. Moon Jung Eun & Jeon Yeun Suk. 2011. A study on gyaru makeup and cosmetology students’ awareness of it. Journal of the Korean Society of Costume 61(7), 110–124. https://www.riss.kr/search/detail/DetailView.do?p_mat_type=1a0202e37d52c72d&control_no=3f80201b2eb849bcb7998d826d417196
  3. Kim Si-Man. 2007. A study on the social background of gyaru fashion and the extraction of formal keywords. Journal of Basic Design & Art 8(1), 83–94. https://www.riss.kr/search/detail/DetailView.do?p_mat_type=1a0202e37d52c72d&control_no=13cfa0515be6cd5a47de9c1710b0298d
  4. Kim Go-eun. 2014. Characteristics of the gyaru beauty style as a subculture. Konkuk University Graduate School (master’s thesis). https://www.riss.kr/search/detail/DetailView.do?p_mat_type=be54d9b8bc7cdb09&control_no=e82b9a49a16ffc08ffe0bdc3ef48d419
  5. Bae Jun-ha. 2010. A comparative study of Korean and Japanese internet language: focusing on DCinside and 2channel. Mokpo National University Graduate School of Education (master’s thesis). https://www.riss.kr/search/detail/DetailView.do?p_mat_type=be54d9b8bc7cdb09&control_no=9eea61b2cd7730f1ffe0bdc3ef48d419
  6. Ryu Seung-hui. 2014. A study of word formation in Japanese youth language, based on the youth terms recorded in Gendai Yogo no Kiso Chishiki. Chung-Ang University Graduate School (master’s thesis). https://www.riss.kr/search/detail/DetailView.do?p_mat_type=be54d9b8bc7cdb09&control_no=59d114f1d9e9ec32ffe0bdc3ef48d419
  7. Choi Eun-mi. 2011. A study on gyaru makeup as expressed by popular stars. Journal of Investigative Cosmetology 7(2), 147–155. https://doi.org/10.15810/jic.2011.7.2.008

Japanese self-help, therapeutic culture, and emotional capitalism

  1. Makino Tomokazu. 2012. Jiko keihatsu no jidai: a cultural-sociological inquiry into the “self”. Keiso Shobo. (Based on a 2011 Waseda University doctoral dissertation.) https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1970023484962661173
  2. Makino Tomokazu. 2015. From “practical intellectuals” to present-day self-help: an analysis of Chuo Koron Keiei Mondai and will. Gendai Shiso 43(6), 167–183. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1010282257292564614
  3. Makino Tomokazu. 2017. The present state of the popular imagination of the body. Sport Sociology Research 25(2), 21–37. https://doi.org/10.5987/jjsss.25-02-03
  4. Makino Tomokazu. 2019. Living & Working: self-help. Gendai Shiso 47(6), 200–205. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1520291855170348544
  5. Makino Tomokazu. 2024. The polysemy of reading self-help books. Rinsho Shinrigaku 24(6), 668–672. https://doi.org/10.69291/cp24060668 [requires primary verification] (peer-review status)
  6. Koike Yasushi. 2007. Serapi bunka no shakaigaku: network business, self-help, trauma. Keiso Shobo. [requires primary verification] (URL unreachable)
  7. Koike Yasushi. 2009. Conceiving a “sociology of psychologisation”: the present state and problems of therapeutic culture. Kokoro no Kagaku 147, 2–6. [requires primary verification] (URL unreachable)
  8. Inoue Yoshiyasu. 2001. Why I do not reject therapeutic culture entirely. Shakai Rinsho Zasshi 8(3), 63–72. [requires primary verification] (URL unreachable)
  9. Ozaki Shunsuke. 2019. The transformation of self-help books for women in the United States. Research Reports of Aichi University of Education (Humanities and Social Sciences) 68, 1–14. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1050845763382440064
  10. Yamada Yoko. 2011. Towards an analysis of “emotional capitalism” society: mental ill-health = risk = cost. Gendai Shiso 39(2), 214–227. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1523951030392102144
  11. Yamada Yoko. 2013. From homo economicus to homo communicans: harassment and “emotional capitalism”. Gendai Shiso 41(15), 72–86. [requires primary verification] (URL unreachable)
  12. Okahara Masayuki. 2013. Born into emotional capitalism: exploring new horizons of emotion and the body. Keio University Press. https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1970867909817099460
  13. Takahashi Yuki. 2020. From “using womanhood” to “joshi-ryoku”: the present politics of being seen and showing oneself as a woman. Waseda Bungaku 10th series (22), 128–137. [requires primary verification] (URL unreachable)
  14. Makino, Tomokazu. 2026. Considerations on Influential Self-Help Books in Postwar Japan. Ningen Kankeigaku Kenkyu 27, 1–9. https://otsuma.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/2000598
  15. Saito, Naoko. 2026. Endless Growth? Rereading Human Nature and Conduct in the Age of Jiko-Keihatsu. In John Dewey’s Human Nature and Conduct, Cambridge University Press, 189–198. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009446389.020
  16. Makino Tomokazu. 2015. Nichijo ni shinnyu suru jiko keihatsu: ways of living, planner techniques, tidying. Keiso Shobo. [requires primary verification] (direct URL unreachable)
  17. Kamemoto Mashu. 2026. A sociosemiotic analysis of femvertising advertising discourse. Bulletin of the Graduate School of Bukkyo University, Literature 54, 19–38. https://doi.org/10.50927/db00540l019
  18. Yamamoto Katsura. 2024. Women’s “resistance” and “empowerment” in tourism. Kanko Gaku Hyoron 12(1), 19–30. [requires primary verification] (DOI unconfirmed)
  19. Haraguchi Yoshinori. 2023. May a coach tell a client that their self-affirmation is low? Shien Taiwa Kenkyu 8, 75–83. https://doi.org/10.20761/jadcs.8.0_75 [requires primary verification] (peer-review status)

Western critiques of positivity and empowerment discourse

  1. Iida Yoko. 2026. Women’s “success” and the gender order: an analysis of New Thought self-help magazines in turn-of-the-century America. Shukyo to Shakai 32, 17–31. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R000000004-I034800750 [requires primary verification] (peer-review status)
  2. Ehrenreich, Barbara. 2009. Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. Metropolitan Books. ISBN 9780312658854 [requires primary verification] (publisher page unreachable)
  3. Davies, William. 2015. The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being. Verso. [requires primary verification] (publisher page unreachable)
  4. Cederström, Carl & Spicer, André. 2015. The Wellness Syndrome. Polity. [requires primary verification] (publisher page unreachable)
  5. Cabanas, Edgar & Illouz, Eva. 2019. Manufacturing Happy Citizens: How the Science and Industry of Happiness Control our Lives. Polity. [requires primary verification] (publisher page unreachable)
  6. Gill, Rosalind, Kelan, Elisabeth K. & Scharff, Christina M. 2017. A Postfeminist Sensibility at Work. Gender, Work & Organization 24(3), 226–244. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12132
  7. Bal, P. Matthijs & Dóci, Edina. 2018. Neoliberal ideology in work and organizational psychology. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology 27(5), 536–548. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2018.1449108
  8. McRobbie, Angela. 2008. The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. SAGE. [requires primary verification] (2008 or 2009 undetermined)
  9. Banet-Weiser, Sarah. 2018. Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny. Duke University Press. https://www.dukeupress.edu/empowered
  10. Rottenberg, Catherine. 2018. The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism. Oxford University Press. [requires primary verification] (publisher page unreachable)
  11. Gill, Rosalind & Orgad, Shani. 2018. The Amazing Bounce-Backable Woman: Resilience and the Psychological Turn in Neoliberalism. Sociological Research Online 23(2), 477–495. https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780418769673
  12. Ahl, Helene & Marlow, Susan. 2021. Exploring the false promise of entrepreneurship through a postfeminist critique of the enterprise policy discourse in Sweden and the UK. Human Relations 74(1), 41–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726719848480
  13. Gill, Rosalind. 2016. Post-postfeminism?: new feminist visibilities in postfeminist times. Feminist Media Studies 16(4), 610–630. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2016.1193293
  14. Roivainen, Ida. 2023. “Life sucks, coffee helps”: Authentic entrepreneurial self on YouTube girlboss channels. Nordicom Review 44(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2023-0001
  15. Chen, Shirley Xue & Zeng, Natasha. 2023. “Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss”: Coded femininity and disidentification in TikTok youth culture. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research. https://doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2022i0.12988
  16. Frank, Thomas. 1997. The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. University of Chicago Press. [requires primary verification] (publisher page unreachable)

Adjacent areas

  1. Watanabe Asuka. 2024. “Modernology of fashion”: changes in the times and manners, based on fixed-point observation of street fashion. Journal of the Japan Research Association for Textile End-Uses 67(2), 41–46. https://doi.org/10.20616/clothingresearch.67.2_41
  2. Matsui Takeshi. 2015. Four types of social signs: appellation, act, threat, category. Japan Marketing Journal 35(2), 5–19. https://doi.org/10.7222/marketing.2015.044
  3. Takahashi Kanae. 2020. Gyaru mothers’ expectations for their children and their child-rearing policies. Kazoku Kankeigaku 39, 29–41. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjfr/39/0/39_29/_article/-char/ja
  4. Rose, Megan Catherine. 2020. Child’s Play? Exploring the Significance of Kawaii for Decora and Fairy-Kei Fashion Practitioners in Harajuku. New Voices in Japanese Studies 12, 80–102. https://doi.org/10.21159/nvjs.12.05
  5. Takahashi Kanae. 2022. A study of motherhood norms and their uniformity in contemporary Japanese society: the case of gyaru mothers’ fashion and child-rearing. Meiji University (doctoral dissertation). https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000039-I12213065 [requires primary verification] (full text restricted to on-site access at the National Diet Library)
  6. Putri, Armaztisya Ismael Manaf. 2023. Analisis Teknik Penerjemahan Bahasa Slang Wanita dalam Anime Oshiete! Gyaruko Chan. Universitas Negeri Jakarta. [requires primary verification] (URL unreachable)

Corrections to the previous corpus

Of the items left unverified in gyaru-culture-mindset-literature, two were settled this round.

  • Nilsson 2013 (reference 37 there): the primary URL was reached. https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/search/publication/3912017 . The degree level is recorded as “M2 - Bachelor Degree” and the course code is JAPK11 (an undergraduate course in Japanese studies at Lund University), confirming it as an undergraduate student paper.
  • Zander 2025 (reference 19 there): https://purl.stanford.edu/dw564jg4462 was reached, confirming it as the equivalent of a master’s thesis at Stanford Global Studies, Center for East Asian Studies (not an honors thesis). The supervisor is Miyako Inoue.

Beck 2007 and Ivanova 2012 remained unreachable in their primary repositories this round as well.

Items requiring verification

Thirty-nine items could not be verified at first hand.

URL unreachable (12): references 1 (Kazui 2021), 7 (Corcoran 2018), 14 (Ibáñez Santiago 2025), 22 (Arai 2022), 23 (Arai 2009), 36 (Koike 2007), 37 (Koike 2009), 38 (Inoue 2001), 41 (Yamada 2013), 43 (Takahashi 2020), 46 (Makino 2015), 71 (Putri 2023).

Publisher page unreachable (6): references 51 (Ehrenreich 2009), 52 (Davies 2015), 53 (Cederström & Spicer 2015), 54 (Cabanas & Illouz 2019), 59 (Rottenberg 2018), 65 (Frank 1997). Year and bibliographic details for all six were confirmed via OpenLibrary.

Full text or abstract unconfirmed (6): references 4 (Cameron 2000, whether gyaru is mentioned), 11 (Komorida 2004), 12 (Miller 2020, use of the word ganguro in the abstract), 13 (Yoshikawa 2021), 44 (Makino 2026, abstract not public), 70 (Takahashi 2022, restricted to on-site access at the National Diet Library).

Peer-review status unconfirmed (11): references 8 (Sumida 2008), 10 (Yoshie 2003), 17 (Arai 2023), 18 (Kimura et al. 2021), 26 (Kim Si-Man 2007), 31 (Makino 2012), 35 (Makino 2024), 42 (Okahara 2013), 49 (Haraguchi 2023), 50 (Iida 2026), 59 (Rottenberg 2018).

Bibliographic details to be settled (4): references 6 (Petrovic 2025, formal volume and issue undetermined), 21 (Takeyama 2016, book URL unreachable), 30 (Choi Eun-mi 2011, KCI status is “candidate” rather than “registered”), 57 (McRobbie, publication year 2008 or 2009).

Three further points are recorded as limits of this round of searching.

Chinese-language results were zero, but since none of CNKI, Wanfang, Airiti Library, or Taiwan NDLTD could be reached directly, this cannot be used as a judgement of absence.

Several journals — U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, Mechademia, Asian Anthropology, Japan Review, Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty among them — could not be combed at the journal level, owing to bot protection or authentication requirements.

The absence of “research critically analysing the gyaru mind as discourse” is a zero result across five changes of route, and therefore rests on stronger grounds than last time. It remains, even so, an absence within the range searched.

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