In spite of my best attempts to continually promote Men’s Knuckle magazine, it’s clear that at least some of the people who come here via Google looking for center guy and gyaru-o coverage just really want to see more of men’s egg (500 yen, published by Taiyoh Tosho), the all-male version of monthly gal magazine egg. And who can blame them? So here’s a look inside the new issue.
The cover story is a “complete guide to outerwear” which - this being winter - means page after page of big puffy down jackets from brands with funny names like Varosh, Blutenblatt, Rise Rily, Buffalo Bobs, and Casva. These two pictured below are probably the most ridiculous and are made by Midas. Know ye now that everything they touch turns…fabulous!
The best part of this issue is an essential “Shibuya Styling Manual” where the center guy look gets broken down once and all for lost teenagers who might need some help in forming a stable identity. Everything you see, and a lot more, is on sale now at the Shibuya 109-2 store. No need to make up a grocery list. All you have to do is hold your head up high and tell the staff you'd like it “HARD”, “ADULT”, “GORGEOUS” or “CASUAL”.
men’s egg’s idea of “Hard” sort of differs from the Men’s Knuckle variant. The skin is more tanned, no one is wearing sunglasses, and they look more like kids just hanging out rather than stalking the streets like vampires in search of women to sexually harass and nampa. You may now shout “Freedbird” at the screen in honor of that middle guy's Skynard shirt, especially since someone is supposed to pay US$80 for it.
“Adult” means taking a few bold steps towards a full-on host club look, although their hair could stand to be much crazier and the prices, hovering around US$100-200, will make the little birdies go "cheap, cheap." Here in the US, I’m pretty sure “adult” means dressing like your dad, but I don’t think mine ever walked around Center Street with big white stains near the zipper on his distressed jeans.
“Gorgeous” is pretty close to the Men’s Knuckle base standard for what a proper gyaru-o should look like, clad in useless and eye catching textures like imitation snakeskin, fur, and fake jewelry. The editors claim it is a “simple style” designed for maximum impact. In other corners of the world, that would just mean cargo shorts and sandals. Only in Japan would rock-star-pirate-pimp qualify as "simple".
“Casual” is where I draw the line. The look goes back decades in Shibuya to a mix of surfer and preppy called “American casual”. Then as now, the look is redolent in letterman jackets, long sleeve shirts, un-ironic patches that say things like “Kiss me, I’m Irish”, and even denim overalls! The sad truth is that some Japanese kids are paying in the hundreds to dress like the people you hated in high school. But just because they’ve been doing this for a while now, still doesn’t make it right.
So what do you do once you’ve chosen your poison and maxed out your 109-2 credit card and even taken out a loan to finance your winter wardrobe? Find a girl, buy her some kind of ring, walk literally across the street to the front of Shibuya station, and try and get your brief courtship and fleeting moment of youth immortalized forever by becoming a top ranked "Street Couple". Based on the Pokemon style information helpfully provided, most of the guys are students, while their girlfriends self-identify as “freeters”. Are these lovebirds the future office drones and housewives of Japan? Let's hope so!
And so ends another exciting issue of men's egg, only slightly less exciting than Men's Knuckle because only the latter climaxes in a bunch of host club recruitment ads, while men's egg sails off into the sunset with ads for dodgy acne treatments, body hair removal, fake tanning mousses, miracle growth pills, and something called the "Beautiful Men Clinic".
Still not satisfied? Here is last year's post containing detailed instructions on how to have a very men's egg Christmas.
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