The influence of Shuji Terayama's "Miraculous Mandarin" on the notion of 'Street Theater' in Shibuya 200X

Marxy does a classically "Marxy" deep reading / review of Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno over at Neojaponisme. As such, this 2,000-word-plus enchilada (including footnotes) is the only write-up of our little book that actually matters.

Excerpt:

"Unlike other collections of Tokyo fashion history such as PARCO’s Street Fashion 1945-1995 or the more recent, less theoretical The Tokyo Look Book, Macias and Evers limit their focus to outcast/delinquent styles and ignore the media-dictated and ultimately middle-class consumer lifestyles like Nyutora, New Wave, American Casual, Ura-Harajuku-kei, Shibuya Casual, and the DC Boom. But Inferno’s narrow scope makes the point that the most extreme and interesting Japanese fashions have primarily originated amongst social rejects and not elite stylists....Essentially, most Japanese young people adopt magazine-derived styles to look good, whereas the Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno delinquent subcultures all intentionally want to look bad."