Japanese Girls

Why Do Japanese Women Look So Young?

A Japanese TV show asks tourists from Western countries to guess the ages of Japanese women, and finds that they tend to see them as far younger than their actual ages:

As the picture at the top of the post shows, there were some pretty big gaps between the guesses and the actual ages, especially in the case of the 32-year-old woman. When asked to guess the age of TV announcers (23-27), quite a few people even thought the women were teenagers!

Why do they think Japanese women look younger? A few possible reasons are provided:

• Bags/wrinkles seem to stand out more under the eyes of Westerners.
• Many Japanese women avid the sun by carrying parasols, wearing strong sunscreen, or covering up their skin with clothing. This makes their skin less likely to have wrinkles. (22 countries were represented in their poll of foreign tourists, and apparently tanned skin is seen as a good thing in 17 of those countries.
• Japanese women wear make-up. Of 25 Japanese women interviewed, all 25 were wearing full make-up. Of 25 foreign women, only 2 were wearing full make-up. On average, the Japanese women were carrying 10.6 different make-up products, while the foreign women were carrying 2.7 different make-up products.

They ask one 34-year-old English woman to go through a full course of Japanese-style “natural” make-up. Here is the result:

After her makeover, the English woman says she now understands why Japanese women look so “flawless.” A lot of make-up is used, but the end result still looks natural.

The Japanese woman who taught the make-up technique remarks that the English woman became younger-looking. The English woman’s response presents us with a major difference between their two cultures: she doesn’t want to look like she’s in her twenties.

To test how Japanese and Western women have different views about looking younger, they set up a rigged “let our reporter guess your age” game and have the reporter guess that every woman looked younger. The Japanese women were happy, but the Western women were not.

Their poll found that only 8% of the Western women wanted to look younger than their actual age. In contrast, 76% of Japanese woman thought it would be great to look younger.

It would seem that Japanese women think it is fantastic to look young and Japanese men tend to prefer younger women.

Cultural Anthropologist Masakazu Toki of Edogawa University believes that Japan has a long history of idolizing young women. One 18th century example is given: “three famed beauties of the Meiwa period” (明和三美人), all of whom were 14-15 years-old when they were praised as the most beautiful women in Edo. Professor Toki says things were quite different in Western countries, where religious views made society less likely to treat younger girls as objects of sexual desire.

Note: In this post, “Western women” refers to women from Western countries. It looks like almost every tourist they interviewed was from Europe, Australia, New Zealand, or the Americas. Had they also included tourists from Asian countries, the results of their poll may have turned out differently…

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Mikie Hara Becomes Mystique (X-Men: First Class)

One of the top-viewed videos on YouTube Japan today shows gravure idol Mikie Hara playing the role of Mystique to promote the Japanese release of the new X-Men movie (you can skip to 1:10 to see a time lapse of her make-up):

For a few more photos, check out Tokyo Hive.

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Animation Dancer Kazumi Sets World Record For Bizarre Slide-Walking

Japanese “animation dancer” Kazumi sets a new Guinness World Record:

I have no idea how this one will be translated into English when it’s eventually printed in the world record book. Maybe it’s the fastest person to slide/crawl/walk 10-meters while doing a frontal split?

Although the TV program found a Chinese acrobat girl who could do that kind of slide walking, the only person in the world who can do it at a fast speed is Kazumi. It’s a world record that was made just for her.

If you’ve never heard of Kazumi before and want to see more of her amazing abilities, here are a few older clips from YouTube:

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Snacks Made by Japanese Schoolgirls

The above-pictured bag contains Peppato, a pepper-flavored rice cracker developed as part of a collaborative project between Iwatsuki Confectionary Company and junior high school girls at Shinagawa Joshi Gakuin. Here’s a short video clip of the press conference announcing the product:

The snack will go on sale at convenience stores across Japan on March 7th.

A reporter tries out the snack, noting that it tastes good and the red, white, and black pepper flavor would match well with beer.

A close-up of the package, showing the name of their high school:

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Japanese Girl Explains Titantic

YouTuber Japanarchist asks his friend Mika to provide an English language summary of the movie “Titantic”:

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The Greatest Perfume Fan in the World

Allow me to post about my appreciation for one of the newest YouTube celebrities on the net, Frank Evins (Perfume444). Frank is a diehard fan of the Japanese pop group Perfume, and his bizarre January 12th video birthday message to Kashiyuka (Yuka Kashino) has become an internet sensation:

Here is his bio:

PERFUME 444 CHANNEL IS NOT ABOUT PEOPLE SEEING ME…ITS ABOUT ME THANKING PERFUME FOR ALL THAT THEY HAVE DONE !!!

I have been to Japan in 2003 and 2005.. I play Drums so did 2 small tours in Japan. I LOVE JAPAN !!!! I miss it so much. The Japanese People are so kind and wonderful. I really feel like my soul is Japanese. About Perfume… I got into Perfume in early 2006. I was looking for Japan stuff on youtube, all kinds of music from Japan and I found Perfume. The song Akihabalove was the first one I heard. I fell in love with that song and the girls. I watched the beehive cam on youtube and watched them grow up. So my love for them is like a father daughter love. Not sex because they were so young at the time. Even now I still see them as big kids, NOT sex objects. Anyway…about the Music… I was hooked, It was so different then anything I heard before. my all time favorite song is Seventh heaven…It all ways makes me cry. I also love Secret Secret , Foundation, computer city, Macaroni, Edge , ” jenny in a bad mood ” wonder 2, Polyrhythm,Baby cruising love , Vitamin Drop, yes Its heard to pick just one song. A-Chan is my favorite. If I was 20 yrs old I would want to marry her. But Im not ! Im 55 yrs old. But perfume music makes me feel happy and young I wish I could find some one like A-Chan. She is the most beautiful person I have ever seen. her heart and sole are heaven ! The person that marries her will be the luckiest person on earth.

And an introductory video:

As he video spread around the internet, Frank attracted a lot of trolls who left comments mocking and insulting him. In response, he posted a video announcing that he would stop vlogging on YouTube. However, an outpouring of support from fans convinced him to stick with it:

After a tearful message of gratitude, he is now back to making cheerful videos expressing his love for Perfume:

Some random screen captures:

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