Sex, Robots, and Fear of Adulthood: Exploring Lychee Light Club

"Do you understand why the Hikari Club boys wear gakuran and insert German into everyday conversations? Do you understand why it isn't simply fashion, or cosplay? Do you know what it means to put on a play in the 80s, with a group of people that go out of their way to wear gakuran?" - Tsunekawa Hiroyuki, December 17, 2015.

I first heard the title Lychee Light Club thrown around about a decade ago, usually in the same breath as No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. While Dazai has gotten mainstream acclaim for his work, Furuya's manga adaptation of Lychee Light Club still remains so underground that I had to special order it online from a Canadian publisher who printed too close to the bottom margin of the page. Naturally, as I do with all obscure works of media, I've latched on to the Light Club in all its forms and done some online digging... and I've found so much to talk about! Strap in and turn your screen brightness down to avoid eye strain, because there are a LOT of words coming at you.

What Is Lychee Light Club?

In its most popular form, Lychee Light Club is a manga by Usamaru Furuya, about a group of middle school boys led by the charismatic, iron-fisted (and, in the original work, iron-codpieced) Zera. Zera and his friends/lovers/disciples meet in an abandoned warehouse after school to play chess, scheme, have illicit underage gay sex, and build a robot powered by lychee fruits that will help them kidnap girls their age and build an ideal world free from the drudgery of adult life. The manga is beautifully drawn and written, with a lot of turns of phrase that stuck with me despite their limited character count. However, the manga had an oft-forgotten predecessor: a production unlike any other.

The original Lychee Light Club was a stage play, put on in 1985 by the short-lived theater troupe Tokyo Grand Guignol. There is no video recording of the show, and there is one audio recording, which is in the possession of Tsunekawa Hiroyuki, the actor that played Zera. Denpa Archives translated a blog post from a defunct Japanese blog with a summary of the play, which is essentially the only account of it that still exists. Notably, the production described has a few key differences: in the original play, the boys did not engage in homoerotic trysts as a way to stave off adulthood, but rejected any sexuality at all and instead wore iron chastity belts. Jaibo, who you could argue is the antagonist in both works, is motivated not by love but by pure hatred, a cold detachment opposite his passionate declaration of love for Zera in the manga.

What Was Tokyo Grand Guignol?

To talk about Tokyo Grand Guignol, we need to give a brief run-down on the original Grand Guignol. The Theatre du Grand-Guignol was a French production company that operated out of a converted chapel, and sat 293 people at maximum capacity. The intimate setting and Gothic architecture gave way to a new form of theater, featuring gory and shocking stories interspersed with slapstick comedies, and audiences so close to the stage that they might be hit with the errant drop of fake blood. The Grand Guignol ran shows until shortly after World War 2, and the location is now home to the International Visual Theater.

Some of the cast of the TGG show, courtesy of Denpa Archives

Tokyo Grand Guignol, then, is an homage to the violent, bloody and irreverent Grand Guignol of Paris, carrying on the tradition of Naturalist theater by dissolving the divides between actor and audience. Despite the mark left by this troupe on Tokyo's art scene, only four documented plays were ever put on in Tokyo Grand Guignol's history, of which Litchi Hikari Club was the third. The troupe was founded by experimental artist Norimizu Ameya (who would go on to play Jaibo in Litchi Hikari Club) in collaboration with horror manga author Suehiro Maruo (who famously authored and illustrated the pioneering ero-guro manga Shojo Tsubaki, aka The Girl from the Freakshow), who both prioritized a sort of punk-adjacent DIY ethos with a focus on audience interaction and immersion. Suehiro's manga Shojo Tsubaki was adapted for the screen by Hiroshi Harada, who staged guerilla screenings of the movie with a distinctly TGG feeling; mazes leading to rooms with actual circus sideshow performances, secretive ticket distribution, and fully immersive sound effects and settings, creating a truly unique experience that cannot be replicated via DVD distribution. TGG shows were allegedly much the same, with stripped-down sets, gaudy makeup, and lines being shouted over a booming soundtrack of Devo, Public Image Ltd, and the noises of torture and industrial machinery.

What Is The Meaning of Lychee Light Club?

The story I've outlined so far is surrealist, uncomfortable, and distinctly odd - and believe me, it is all of that and more. But at its core, Lychee Light Club is a story about the enduring nature of fascism, the radicalization of young men in our modern age, the growing gender divide between young men and women, and the microcosm of cruelty and paranoia that groups of teenagers can breed. There are a few key points I'd like to outline that I think give way to a deeper understanding of both iterations of the work:

1. Ero-guro in Japan

"Ero guro nansensu" (erotic gore nonsense) was popularized in Japan's Showa era, which was approximately around The Great Depression in America. This term referred to stories by authors like Edogawa Ranpo (a Romanized pen name meant to sound like Edgar Allan Poe) and art by Ukiyo-e painters that drew erotic scenes of crucifixions and beheadings. This genre was akin to the British penny dreadful, and was highly censored and suppressed during WW2, but emerged as simply "eroguro" and was popularized again after the war. The genre now takes on highly erotic or pornographic elements, and an air of decadence and excess, contrasting beauty and sexuality with disgust and decay, rotting flesh, bodily fluids and dismemberment. A few bands under the visual kei genre umbrella, such as gulugulu and THE GALLO, have taken on the term "eroguro" to describe their lyrics and aesthetics.

In Lychee Light Club, the erotic elements are inherently grotesque, horrific, and uncomfortable, much like the use of body horror from directors like David Cronenberg. 13 and 14-year old boys committing sexual assault with metal pipes, stripping and murdering a teacher, and engaging in manipulation via sex is not meant to be sexually arousing to the reader, but to link sex to violence. This is further driven home by the boy's fear of adulthood and use of chastity belts in the play; sex is a gateway to adulthood, and is therefore something shameful and evil, a tool to inflict violence as (in their minds) adults have inflicted violence upon them, their town, and their futures.

2. The gakuran uniform

I mean, even a surface level glance at the gakuran could tell you a lot about why this was chosen for the members of our Light Club. To be perfectly frank... it looks like a Nazi SS uniform, and that's because they share the same source material: Prussian military uniforms.


The gakuran in its earliest form, circa 1870, consists of a flat military cap, a standing-collar shirt and jacket, and matching pants. It was designed during a time when Japan was becoming increasingly militarized, and was meant to encourage strong militaristic values in the young men of the era. But, as Japan became Westernized, the gakuran in its fullest form (namely, with the hat) fell out of fashion, often being replaced with a blazer and tie for high schoolers.

So then, as Tsunekawa asked in his quote at the beginning of this post: do you understand why the boys of the Light Club wear gakuran?

The gakuran with the cap was worn by the performers of Lychee Light Club in the 1980's, a time when this iteration of the uniform would have been seen as an outdated relic of a more militaristic time. The cap and white gloves worn by Zera, who in the manga is told that he has "a black star over him that not even Adolf Hitler had," paints a clear parallel to an unstable dictator. Furthermore, boys about to go into high school, yet clinging to their gakuran in its most old-fashioned form, signifies the boys' refusal to enter the world of adulthood and the decrepit, outdated nature of the manufacturing town they live in. When combined with the garish makeup worn on stage, the effect is one of a ghoulish arrested development, a lost child and an undead fascist all at once.

3. The robot and Kanon

The character Kanon, the young girl kidnapped by the robot Litchi, went by the name Marin in the stage play. I'll be referring to her as "Kanon" when talking about both iterations for the sake of clarity, but I wanted to call out her original name here!


First off, we'll talk about the nominal Lychee/Litchi, the robot built out of scraps and human body parts that serves as the great purpose of the Hikari Club boys. Litchi is controlled via a calculator, and is given consciousness via the command "I am human." Zera states that there is fundamentally no difference between a robot and a human, because all human beings are is logical collections of moves, like a chess set.

I know, what a pretentious little dickhead.

Litchi, the robot, defies this, proving himself to be more human than the actual people who built him. With Kanon, the kidnapped girl, he learns to love, remember, and eventually defy the cruelty of his makers.

Kanon is the character that brings down the house of cards built by Zera, and is the Madonna to the whore of... basically every other woman in the play and manga. Kanon, originally just a representation of the ideal girl, sits upon a rusted-out throne for most of the story. She pretends to sleep all day, but interacts with the robot Litchi at night, singing with him and telling him stories. Kanon and Litchi fall in some semblance of love, and her love undoes his programming and makes him a human being. We don't get much background on Kanon, but she seems cooly detached for the entirety of her stay in the Light Club hideout, with Litchi being the only person or thing to arouse emotion in her. She, in turn, is the only female character to arouse anything other than hatred in the boys; they sexually assaulted one of the group's younger sisters with a metal pole in the manga, and abuse and murder their teacher in both versions. Where other girls and women are treated with disgust, the boys treat Kanon with a mixture of arousal, awe, and disbelief, making Litchi a target for their ire and hatred when Kanon falls for him.

The manga, though, gives Litchi and Kanon a happier ending than the stage play. In the manga, Kanon and Litchi get to speak one last time, and Kanon escapes as the warehouse becomes a watery grave for the members of the Light Club.

The play, however, allegedly ended as follows:

When the lights return, Litchi sits in the center of the stage, lifeless. Marin (Kanon) is lying in his lap with a strange hat on her head. Zera stands behind them, seeming to live on forever.

Zera: "I will stand here and watch. I will stand here and watch as our machine named Litchi slowly rusts away. I will watch this so-called Marin rot away until she is nothing but bones. Gentlemen... Bohren! Beginen!"

Zera takes out his whistles and tweets. The sheets strung up behind him fall. A number of stepladders are revealed, with the Hikari Club members sitting on them and shining lights on each other's bloody faces. The stage slowly goes dark amidst the strong sound of caning.

4. The lychee fruits

Zera is obsessed with a few things: Emperor Elagabalus of Rome, chess, and Yang Guifei, a princess and imperial concubine who favored lychee fruit. Yang Guifei is one of two women mentioned favorably throughout the story, three if you count the queen chess piece. The robot Litchi, despite being referred to as male, is also referred to as the Queen piece of the Light Club (with Zera being the Black King), and runs solely on lychee fruit. The monster as a cultural body being a reflection of taboo cultural desires, showcases the boys' hopes and dreams; their desire for women and hatred of them in tandem, their sexual desire and hatred for each other, and their search for meaning. The lychee fruit represents femininity, but also eternity; it represents that the thing that destroys them is simultaneously the thing that saved them, that granted their wish for a life free from adulthood.

The lychee, grown in a local dump in the manga, also represents the loss of their shared dream, and the loss of hope in their bleak industrial town. Niko and Tamiya, manipulated by Jaibo, are framed for burning down the lychee field that Zera carefully cultivated. This is a turning point in the story, where Zera feels his control begin to slip, and realizes his shoddily constructed ideal is slipping through his fingers. In this way, Jaibo cements his place as Zera's trusted advisor, alienating him further within their already alienated circle, and sets the stage for the final stand of the Light Club.

5. The use of German

The Hikari Club speaks in broken German phrases, both in the play and the manga. This is intentionally alienating for the reader and viewer of the play, so much so that the translator of my copy of the manga did not translate these phrases to retain their effect. Aside from the obvious reference to Nazism, speaking German serves to both alienate the boys from their other classmates, and create a shared language within their group. The speaking of German designates an "in" crowd and an "out" crowd, creating a shared dialect within their microcosm that further serves to isolate them.

Whose Light Club Is It, Anyway?

The following is a statement made by Tsunekawa Hiroyuki on December 17, 2015.

"Usamaru-kun reached out to me. Apparently, Ameya Norimizu strongly pushed for Hikari Club to be published as an original work, rather than a derivitive one. That sounds like something he'd do. Neither the publisher nor Usamaru-kun had the intention of marketing Hikari Club as an original work."

Both in the story and in real life, there's a lot of contention surrounding the intellectual property of Lychee Light Club. Though Furuya allegedly tried to market Lychee Light Club as a derivative work, giving credit to TGG, Ameya, leader of the troupe and the actor that played Jaibo (ironically, the betrayer of the Light Club) pushed for it to be sold as an original work. The real-life Zera, as you can see, was not happy about this, nor about their work being introduced to the mainstream via a poorly received movie and anime adaptation. "The movie, Lychee ☆ Hikari Club is an adaptation of Furuya Usamaru's Our Hikari Club, right? That I understand. Bokura(Our Hikari Club) is Usamaru's world. Litchi Hikari Club doesn't ring a bell anymore. The original cast and our history of theater has been removed from the Hikari Club name. First it was Death Note, then it was Litchi. More and more underground works are being diluted and adapted into silly movies that are popular for a while, then forgotten when the audience gets bored. I hate that kind of mass media."

In the manga, there are similar contentions surrounding who the "leader" of the Light Club really is. The Club worships Zera like a dictator, taking his word as law and often chanting his name like a psalm. At least two of the boys are in love with Zera, and he clearly relishes in the power. However, as we read, we learn the Light Club originally belonged to Tamiya, Kaneda, and Dafu, and was simply a place for these friends to spend time together. Zera was brought in early on, and with the help of Niko and Jaibo (who kind of just came out of nowhere), he succeeded in overtaking the club through sheer force of charisma, making the others obey through peer pressure and torture.

The question remains: who was the real leader? Who owns art once it becomes mainstream? Is your art still yours, when the meaning becomes diluted? Can anything shared ever be owned?

I loved Lychee Light Club, loved it enough to type out a short essay on it using an iPhone keyboard (please excuse the formatting issues). Part of me hopes it gets more widespread popularity... but part of me really hopes it doesn't.

Sources

I'm not going to type an actual bibliography, because this is my blog and not an essay. However, I do want to call out and specially thank the websites I used as sources outside of my copy of the manga and Mel Gordon's Theater of Fear and Horror.

For information on the production Lychee Light Club, including photos and a soundtrack, visit: https://denpaarchive.neocities.org/litchi

For information on Tokyo Grand Guignol, including a script, visit: https://mutantfishproductions.com/misc.htm

For information on gakuran uniforms and their tie to Japanese militarism, visit: https://www.journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/1041

The Grail to End All Grails: JPG's Antique Doll Bag

 I've never considered myself to be a "purse person," but this bag is (and has always been) the exception. I first saw it when I was 12, in the Phaidon "Gothic and Lolita" coffee table book, and it has bewitched me ever since. 

Image from the sold out listing on Women's History Museum 

Again, I am not a purse person, so I've never been to clear on how to research the origins of a bag. Every source I've found has this bag tagged as being from the 90's, but I wish I could find details on a specific year or collection! From what I've seen, it came in a few different styles including a handbag, a tote, and a crossbody, and I've seen a red, a green, and a black colorway pop up. Most street snaps, including the one that made me fall in love with this bag (pictured below) include what is either the green or the black/white color way, but after seeing the red, I think that's the one that has captured my heart completely. 

From Phaidon's Gothic and Lolita, the snap that started it all for me. 

From J-Rock Groupies, there she is again! This one is definitely green. 

From a Mercari listing I'm eyeing. Something about the red background is just perfect, and I love the shape and the buckles. 

Of course, as a child, I was unable to drop $200 on a luxury purse. However, as an adult who makes some ill-advised financial choices in the name of collecting, I've started seriously considering biting the bullet and buying it when I see it come up used. The problem that has arisen, though, is that it has been snatched from my cart every single time I have the money for it and muster the courage to press "checkout!" 

This has happened twice on ClosetChild and once on Wunderwelt; before I can even hit the checkout button, I get an error message and the bag is gone, spirited away into the night. Do the powers that be just REALLY want to prevent me from spending a silly amount of money on a purse? Currently, I'm thinking I might just buy one of the Mercari listings I've been looking at. I typically try not to make a shopping service order unless I'm buying multiple items, but this bag makes me willing to eat the shipping cost. This year seems like the time to buy, because I'm looking for a more practical handbag to take on a few trips; my usual bag is my Moitie trunk, but it's massive, unwieldy, and hard to carry around when doing activities. I also own a BtSSB mini heart purse and a Captain Chris pochette, which are both equally impractical (what is with me and silly novelty purses?). 

A purse of this caliber is definitely an "investment," but I don't want to just buy a "placeholder" bag that I can use in the meantime/I would rather spend money on the bag I REALLY, really want. Which is all to say: if you see me walking around with this Gaultier bag in the future, please know that it was a long time coming.

Tag: Get To Know My Blog

 I was tagged by my dear friend Mika (cashmerecrypt) in this post, and I am DELIGHTED that these tag posts are coming back!!! I was around for the DeviantArt and blog memes (remember when "meme" was used to mean written tag posts almost exclusively?), but was too young to actually participate. This is just another part of our small friend group's quest to bring back early 2000's visual kei internet, and I for one love it so much. 

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

I started blogging so that I had a place to put all my thoughts! I am very "academic brained" after four years of English major media analysis, and I was lamenting that I no longer had a reason to write essays. Having a blog lets me do media analysis in a more casual way, and share my hobbies and photos! I don't love social media, but I do love having my own little space on the internet. 

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?

I use Blogger! I wanted to try Neocities, but after learning some rudimentary HTML and giving it my best shot, I realized I probably should just switch to a pre-made platform. I would still love to create a Neocities site in the future, though! 

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

I had a Tumblr, though I'm unsure if that counts? I used Wordpress for a college class where my professor had us writing book reviews in a blog-style format, so needless to say, that kind of put me off of Wordpress lol. I'm not a tech person, so Blogger is fine for me! It does exactly what it needs to do. 

How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that’s part of your blog?

I use the Blogger post thing, which is so incredibly annoying to use via phone. 

When do you feel most inspired to write?

There's zero rhyme or reason to it, sometimes I go a month without wanting to and then make three posts in as many days. 

Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

Again, zero rhyme or reason. It happens how it happens! My writing for work is so regimented, my blog is a place for me to do the exact opposite. 

What’s your favourite post on your blog?

Probably my media analyses, my first post ever was on Godchild/The Cain Saga and I had a lot of fun with it! I'd like to do some better and more in-depth ones in the future, I feel like the media posts I have up now aren't particularly insightful and sort of just a way to get my thoughts down. 

Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?

MORE OUTFIT POSTS, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. I constantly forget to take outfit photos! I'd also like to do better, more in-depth media analyses, but also more low-effort fun posts like inspiration photo dumps. 

I don't have anyone to tag, but PLEASE do this too and tag me in it! 

What Have I Worn Lately?

 I'm absolutely horrible about remembering to take outfit photos, but here are a few mirror shots of some outfits from the last month or two! Sorry for my makeup products in some shots; I don't have a vanity or dedicated space to do my makeup, so I do it sitting on the floor and store my products in a bin. They inevitably end up strewn around, though. 

We live in a beautiful and very small house, so the room where I get ready is also my sewing room, my work from home office, and my fiancé's music/recording room. We just finally accepted that we weren't using it as a dining room, so we cleared the dining set out to make it easier for it to do triple duty! 

I wore this to stay in on a Saturday and play Corpse Party on my Switch (Yuuya Kizami is my favorite character, I'm not taking any criticism and you can't change my mind). 

Slip, cardigan: thrifted 

Turtleneck: Everlane

Belt: hand-me-down from my grandma 

Other accessories: Metamorphose, Vivienne Westwood, Hot Topic, Thrifted, Moitie 

This was an outfit to help my fiancé's band load their van and set up the merch table pre-show. I planned to stay for the show, but the venue was FREEZING, so I went home and ate the long chicken Burger King sandwich with my cats. I can die happy now that I have a velvet Baby skirt. 

Top, vest: thrifted 

Skirt: Baby, The Stars Shine Bright

Accessories/tights: Vivienne Westwood, handmade, Hot Topic, Target 

I wore this to get tea and spend time with Mika and Sierra a few Sundays ago. The weather was beautiful, we had a delicious high tea, looked through the book Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno, and watched the new Madman's Esprit video together after taking some photos. 

Blazer: thrifted and customized 

Skirt: handmade 

Necklace, blouse, socks: Metamorphose 

Headdress: BtSSB

Jewelry: Moitie, vintage 

Purse: Moitie 

Shoes: Yosuke

I wore this on a date to the mall with my fiancé, we wanted to play mini golf and weirdly one of the only indoor mini golf places around is in a mall? It was really cool to see the mall thriving though, turns out they have a trading card market on Saturdays! 

Top: h.NAOTO Blood 

Skirt: Marble 

Choker, headband: handmade 

Jewelry: Vivienne Westwood, Malice Mizer merch, Hot Topic, Moitie 

Legwear: Metamorphose, Target

Shoes: Angelic Imprint 

I wore this to go to Barnes and Noble solo one Sunday, I just needed to get out of the house. I ended up buying the short story collection 50 Beasts to Break Your Heart by Gennarose Nethercott, I can't recommend that book enough if you're a fan of magical realism! 

Blouse: Black Peace Now 

Cardigan: h.NAOTO Frill 

Skirt: Emily Temple Cute (altered from a JSK into a skirt by me) 

Legwear: Meta, unknown offbrand tights 

Headband: handmade 

Jewelry: Vivienne Westwood, Moitie, Malice Mizer merch 

Rats all, folks! I'm really going to try to get better at taking coord photos this year. Even though I don't wear full lolita coordinates every day, I do mix my pieces into my casual wardrobe on most days, which results in a lot of cool outfits. 

Complicating the Hypothetical

 I'm recently obsessed with Bliss Foster. 

Funnily enough, I accidentally started watching his YouTube channel in tandem with my dear friend Mika, maybe a week after they started watching his content. It's been so fun to discuss his work with someone who ALSO loves fashion and sewing!

Bliss has a million incredible videos, and I highly recommend all of them, but I want to talk about his video on personal style and how his thesis on high fashion can translate to the subcultural fashion I love. 

Breaking this post up with a few of my favorite street snaps, since it's so text-heavy! 

On the outside looking in, I've been told my style looks extremely unique - and in a way, it is. The fact of the matter, though, is that very little about the way I dress is solely unique to me. The way I style things might be a little different from my source material, but I'm always referring to eras and movements that I find inspiring. I'm a Xerox of a Xerox with a pair of funky earrings added on top, and that is 100% ok with me.

In Bliss's video on personal style, he talks about the "shock of recognition" in fashion. "Shock of recognition" refers to the moment when you find a bit of yourself in a piece of art, and deepen your connection to it through feeling seen and understood. In fashion as a medium, this phenomena works differently. Fashion designers build worlds and profiles of hypothetical people, in order to draw in the customers who see a bit of themselves in these hypotheticals. However, with fashion being a wearable medium, Bliss argues that the shock of recognition in fashion comes not from seeing a bit of yourself in the clothing, but from looking in the mirror and seeing a bit of someone else within you. When you wear these clothes, you complicate the hypothetical worldbuilding the designer did simply by being yourself and living life. Fashion is an inherently collaborative medium, and simply wearing your clothing is a way to collaborate with this designer and their world. 

Putting this in the context of lolita and Japanese street fashions is fairly easy, given that every brand is very open about their worldbuilding. Moitie is an abandoned castle decorated with candelabras and dried roses, Baby is a tea party held in an enchanted garden. Juliette et Justine is that terrifying 1960's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland with the taxidermic animals. 

Lolita brands present briefs of their ideal customers: the visual kei bangya who loves vampires, the maiden transported to a modern world, the eccentric Victorian woman - and we connect with certain brands more than others because those briefs speak to us. A lot of this calls to mind the "pure maiden" lifestyle lolita that was mythologized and popularized on LiveJournal in the early 2000's. She was beautiful, composed, drank tea, embroidered, didn't watch TV and always minded her manners. She always wore coordinates perfectly, never laughed too loudly, and projected a mysterious aura. These are all ideas of a person that can help give shape to clothing collections, but who doesn't exist in real life. 

This is where the complication of the hypothetical comes into play. None of us are the hypothetical perfect person for a brand, but these briefs resonate with a small part of us. Brands like Victorian Maiden and Moitie resonate with me because they combine Gothic motifs with whimsy and softness, but I am not a waifish Gothic Victorian with a collection of hair lockets. We complicate the narratives these brands build by wearing their clothes, and that is how you create personal style within established subcultures. Your clothes are unique because you're the one wearing them, not because they are unique to your closet exclusively. Your style is unique because it is on your body, worn with your accessories that you chose, and worn in a way that is comfortable for you.

Clothing as an art form is perfected by interacting with it in life. The art is not finished when the garment is finished, it is finished when the audience wears it into the world. When you buy a piece, whether you're the first owner or the fifth, you are contributing to that garment's shared history. You are now one of the many people who touched it, gave it purpose, and loved it, from the designer to the seamstress to you. You are seeing parts of others reflected back at you, and that's a really important and special thing. Fashion is a collaborative and community-based medium, and I hope it makes you feel less isolated and alone. I hope you can look at these garments and see parts of others within them. I hope you see yourself, too. 

Go out and complicate that hypothetical. 

Wardrobe Board 2025 + EGL Fashion Goals

 Long time no online rambling! 

I've done with this blog what I do with a lot of my writing hobbies, which is to say that I hold myself to a standard that becomes unsustainable for me. Namely, I was trying to hold off on making a new post until I take more outfit photos, but I NEVER remember to photograph my outfits when I'm not with my friends. So, I decided we're just not doing outfit posts regularly lol.

My personal computer broke around November last year, which makes Blogger a little hard to operate. It isn't a platform that's super conducive to a mobile format, which is a feature I enjoy, but makes it a little hard to write posts and format photos when I'm doing it all on my phone. For this reason, I actually decided not to do a "traditional" January EGL wardrobe post this year and instead to do a Pinterest board! If you'd like to see my wardrobe, you can view it here (I have a mixture of stock photos and my own photos). 

The other reason I opted not to do a static wardrobe post is that I've had a few minor stylistic changes within lolita, and I'm moving some things around. I'm wanting to add a few Atelier Pierrot aristo pieces to my closet, as well as some more Gothic pieces, which might necessitate selling a few things. I like the flexibility of being able to add pieces and archive sold pieces, so a Pinterest wardrobe seemed like the way to go. 

All of this is a nice transition into the fun part of this post, which is: my goals for my closet this coming year!

 I am very much in the camp of "lolita is equal parts collector's hobby and fashion," and part of the fun for me is the thrill of the hunt! I love tracking down older pieces and cleaning/mending them. However, my first resolution is actually more about enjoying what I have! 

1. Buy less, coord more 

I am a clotheshorse, and the only thing that keeps me from reaching hoarder levels in our little house is clever storage. I have 15 main pieces (with two more skirts on the way), and while that isn't even close to some people's collections, that is a gargantuan amount of garments to wear regularly. That doesn't even count my "normie" skirts and dresses, either! I have a really impressive and beautiful wardrobe that I am so lucky to own, and I definitely favor certain pieces over others, so I'd like to challenge myself to wear every single piece (and let go of the ones that don't get a ton of wear) before repeating my staple favorites.

2. Purchase basics 

Contradictory to the above, I know. I, as most of us do, tend to favor main pieces over basics when making purchases. That ends this year! I have a short list of basics that my wardrobe could really benefit from, which is: 

• A black full bonnet (I have my eye on a secondhand Moitie one)  
• Stand collar blouse in black  
• A black jabot (ideally the Sheglit Ulysses one) 
• Black lace gloves 
• Black lace arm covers
• A corset finishing belt with actual boning

I've made three purchases this January that do NOT adhere to this list, because I'm incorrigible and they were fantastic prices. I snagged: 

Innocent World Musette Bustier (2011) in Black, $38 

Baby, The Stars Shine Bright Velour Skirt (2006) in Wine, $60 (missing suspender straps) 

 Bodyline Tiered Floral Skirt with Cameo Bow (2010) in Black, $22 (missing bow) 

It's funny how so many of us are now nostalgic for Bodyline! I think we didn't realize how good we had it until they closed, haha. 

The goal is for these pieces to be the last main pieces I purchase for the year, with the exception of specific wishlist items (if one magically pops up). The idea behind buying some of those "basics" listed above is that they'll add even more versatility into my closet, and open up a lot more coordinating options for my current wardrobe. 

3. Wear my clothes more 

As I write this, I am at my desk wearing athletic leggings and my massive striped "around the house" cardigan. I work from home, and I often find that my motivation to get dressed is negatively correlated to how busy we are. As in, as soon as I'm on more than one project at a time, I stop bothering to get dressed in actual clothing. This usually means that the only times I wear "real" clothes is on the weekends, or if I'm meeting a friend after work. It makes me feel schlubby and unmotivated, and makes working from home that much more boring. 

I'd really like to try to establish a good morning routine this year (maybe even hitting the gym in the morning instead of at night, but I don't want to get too ambitious) and at least make an effort to put on real pants every day. I think it'll improve my work productivity, as well as my life in general! 

4. Do more sewing (that isn't just skirts) 

I'm so guilty of making skirts because they're fun, simple, and easy. I've been sewing for about 12 years, so suffice it to say, I've made enough skirts haha. I really enjoyed making some GLB patterns last year, and I'd like to try a few more from my collection. I also want to try to recreate this Victorian Maiden blouse in cotton gauze, because it looks incredibly simple and is (unfortunately) made of polyester. 

5. Spend time with my loved ones

Self-explanatory, I have amazing friends/family/an incredible fiancé,and I love hanging out with them in fun outfits. Looking forward to doing a lot more of that this year! 

Opinion: The Concrit Problem in EGL

 Alternately, this post could be called "2010's sweet and its consequences." 

I wear (primarily) Old School Lolita, but I didn't always. When I started buying and wearing lolita for myself, I kind of felt like you absolutely had to buy printed dresses and build your coords with colors pulled from prints, which was... not true, very silly, and ended with me feeling uncomfortable and stepping away from the fashion for a bit. Those pieces are now sold, but the coord photos in my phone haunt me. 

This was actually the photo that inspired my recent choppy brown haircut! 

I got into Old School mostly because I was influenced by a friend (whose site I will link here) who was also effectively starting over in EGL at the time. I think it's a style that's a lot more comfortable for daily wear, and also is more in line with what made me fall in love with the fashion over a decade ago: black and white, simple patterns, clunky shoes, too much lace, and a general sort of frumpy/disheveled look. I'm extremely interested in fashion history and print media, so I was already collecting old GLBs and street snap magazines. It felt like a very natural transition! 

My first time trying semi-Old School styling in October last year, I sold that Baby cutsew because it was tight but I kind of regret it tbh 

"Old School" in lolita fashion typically refers to the time period between 2000 and 2008 (roughly), with a lot of coords from the 90's being referred to as "proto lolita." Cynical Neo Princessism (Ophelia, every Old Schooler's idol) has an incredible and well-researched timeline of lolita fashion, linked here, that gives a more complete idea of this time period. But this all brings me to what I wanted to talk about today: 2010's sweet lolita, and how it basically ruined concrit culture. 

Old School coords from the Phaidon book Fresh Fruits (photo originally in Fruits magazine by Shoichi Aoki)

2010's sweet refers to the era when brands started releasing printed dresses, specifically dresses with original art as border prints. Angelic Pretty, a brand that pre-2010 was often doing a lot of the same florals and solid colored pieces as Baby or Meta, became the "pastel unicorn explosion" brand. Prints like Sugary Carnival and Milky Planet are synonymous with this era, and also helped brands effectively copyright their designs (something very tricky to do in fashion). You can't slap a copyright on a dress cut, but you can pretty reliably copyright art prints in a fabric (though unfortunately, I feel like replicas were even more common during this era). 

Photo of a 2010's sweet coord from Japan Fashion Now 

This was also when the "rules" in the Western lolita comm were more firmly cemented (not to say they didn't exist before): your coord needed to consist of wrist cuffs, a printed JSK, a blouse that matches a color in the print, a headpiece, matching OTKs, the biggest petticoat you can find, at least one piece of matching jewelry, and tea party shoes. If you didn't have all of those elements, whoops, go back and try again, do not pass go, do not collect $200. These "rules" were disseminated mostly to stop EGL from getting lost in the melting pot of Hot Topic-driven subcultural soup that was 2000's alt fashion, and to help newer people learn to coordinate as lolita became more popular, but they persist today (sometimes to the detriment of the community). 

Because the pendulum always swings back eventually, we're definitely seeing Old School styling have its "boom" again (or at least becoming more popular). However, I think this is leading to a weird issue: concrit given on Old School coordinates is just not helpful or effective. Our community got so used to the 2010's coord building "rules" that when an Old School coord is posted in spaces that offer concrit, the poster gets 2010's sweet-centric advice. Those suggestions might be great for someone who is actively wearing 2010's sweet, but a lot of them just don't hold water for Old School coords. 

The most common one I see is shoe-based; a lot of 2010's sweet coords emphasized owning tea parties in every color way, usually contrasting the socks but matching with a color in the dress. Old School styling definitely has a more "make do" attitude towards shoes, and a lot of the time, shoes will blend in with the color of the legwear! 

Sometimes, though, shoes will contrast with the legwear in a way that isn't cohesive with the rest of the coord, like brown or black shoes in a sweet coord with no other browns or blacks.

I also see concrit given based on accessories, mostly wrist cuffs. While they did absolutely exist, wrist cuffs weren't as ''mandatory" as they are now, and could easily be swapped for a bracelet (as opposed to worn WITH multiple bracelets). Accessorizing was usually simpler, and sometimes headdresses were even forsaken in favor of a simple hairstyle. 

I don't want this post to come off as if Old School styling is beyond concrit, because it absolutely isn't. Concrit has helped me so much in terms of stylistic growth, and to be honest, sometimes we all need a friend to say "hey, I know what you're going for, but this part isn't working." I think it's important that, when you're giving Old School concrit, you're at least familiar with the era. I'm actually going to use a coord of mine from July of this year as an example, because I don't want to give concrit on a totally random person.

Overall, this wasn't a bad coord at all, and I do like it. I just wore it to a wrestling show, so it's not like I was going to a lolita-centric event. Looking back on it, however, I have some things I'd want to change. If I were to give Old School-centric concrit to myself on this coord (assuming I was talking to someone else and this wasn't a photo of me haha) I would say: 

"I like the blouse and headpiece with the JSK, but the socks and wrist cuffs feel out of place. I would swap the striped socks for something like Meta's black and white raschel lace OTKs, because the stripes make the coord feel very sweet. You could try white peeking bloomers with this too, since the black blends in to your JSK. I might also switch out the tulle Moitie wrist cuffs for plain black or plain white, maybe in a cotton lace? The boots are cute, but I'd also like to see this coord with black mary janes or RHS too!"

 I typically do the compliment sandwich method, or at least begin with a compliment and then a nicely worded suggestion, which is what I learned to do in college writing classes. 

The goal of concrit should not be to insult someone, tear them down, or totally remake their coord; you're simply making suggestions on how they could style differently or change an aspect of their coordinate to better achieve THEIR desired look. You're not giving concrit based on your style, you're giving concrit to help them achieve the best version of their style, which I personally believe makes "rules"-centered concrit ineffective. It can also stifle creativity and discourage experimentation if everyone gives the exact same advice. The best way to find your style within lolita is to mess around with your wardrobe and figure out what makes you feel comfortable, and it's hard to do that when you feel like every outfit has to check boxes! 

These are your clothes, and not every outfit you wear is going to be the most groundbreaking and perfect lolita coordinate ever. Just like any other style, you're going to have days where you can't make it work, and times when you wear something questionable and wonder what the hell you were thinking when you see photos of yourself later. For example: it was summer, but WHY did I wear UTKs with such a short skirt? It just looks so odd! Put those knees away! (No, I still haven't repaired the worn-out back elastics in that dress, I've just been lacing it tighter to prevent The Wrinkles that you see in this pic).

Your clothes are meant to be worn, and you should wear them how you feel comfortable. You can 100% wear lolita clothes without trying to build a lolita coord or calling it lolita fashion, which can be a very fun and freeing way to experiment with your style. You don't have to put yourself into the lolita box all the time, you are not the sole representative of how to wear EGL and you don't owe anyone a perfect representation 24/7. Have fun expressing yourself, don't be afraid to ask for concrit and advice, and be respectful when you give said concrit. 

Also, most importantly: don't ever show your kneecaps. Ever.  

(Your kneecaps are fine, that was a joke, Misako is not coming for you).