The new official TOJ thread, 2011 - Page 1154

man, if you feel that way, it's way over your head but that's not what I intended. It's too bad, because this is all a google search away, and your style and world would blow way open. I'm trying to get people more in touch with their personal style here, instead of languoring in some sort of styleforum/messageboard groupthink du jour type thing - there's actual groupings and better curated genres for this stuff.

Like I said man, I feel it's not about the brands so much as the 'coordi' and the look, and you wear makeup and have the hair, etc - if you stepped into Shibuya you would not be identified as Onii-kei, no. Real Onii-kei is extreme and very hard-edged, those guys look like they don't even bathe that much. You'd possibly be labeled Visual-kei.

Keep in mind that in Japan, people don't necessarily buy these mags and take them home - they're reading them for free for about 10-15 minutes at the 7-11 and the takeaway is just very braindead visuals, pictures only usually. Readers don't pore over the brands, prices, socioeconomic structures normally. That's the editorial side of the job. ANyway, people do get some sort of takeaway from it, and they figure out their style. They probably go for the same magazine on the rack each time, and ignore others, thereby enrolling in a 'zoku' if they're committal enough.

Kiryuryrik, Shellac, GalaabenD, Attachment - disparate labels, also kind of bottom-mid fodder that a lot of magazines kinda pass around within Mens Non-kei, maybe lower filler for the Mode mags (SENSE, as you said, but SENSE 'specializes' in 'black mode' - focusing only on items that come in black) - but I don't think you'd get identified as either Men's Non-kei or Mode, your taste is too extreme and you go for items that have embellishments, themes, or some sort extreme design twist. Men's non-kei is 'cute' and fairly clean style, and nowadays it gravitates towards pseudo-Americana leanings. Mode-kei encapsulates truly luxurious fashion - expensive, luxurious looks, straight off the runways of Europe. I don't know how to best explain this but you have a way of basically rejecting everything that is normally considered mainstream(? maybe not the best descriptor here) or normal (? again).

Google 'Japanese magazine scans' and do a little Boolean shuffle, you will eventually come across links. Sufu has a dedicated thread for links to pdf downloads that come off Chinese servers.

Yes, and that's exactly the point - America has no publications that cater to this many style genres, looks, lifestyles - just doesn't exist anywhere outside of Japan still. There's enough on that graph to show you that you could be picking up like 10 magazines (or more) a month filled with (and Japanese mags are like phone books, like ceoceo said) clothes you'd be interested in. That's like $100+ layout on mags, I actually do pick up all the relevant mags every month because I'm interested in the content but I like to keep a hold on the spread at any given time.

Try that in America, just can't happen. Style is confused in America still. At the most, the internet will fill in the blanks for the obsessed in the USA, rather than print mags, which are somewhat archaic in the US, and also basically dug their own grave in terms of usefulness. Different business model as well, the mags are almost cover to cover paid editorials that look like genuine magazine content (it's a tight cooperative thing) , whereas the tradition in the US to pay for large 1 or 2 page ads, like the first 50 pages of a GQ mag would be. The Japanese didn't really uptake on the internet until much later than the USA, they're not as interested as sitting and surfing the net all day for info intake. Also, like I said, standing at the Japanese 7-11 reading mags is a pasttime, it's called 'tachi-yomi' (standing+reading) and part of the magazine culture. Includes porno mags in the tachi-yomi culture, but all mags are fair game for that.

I gave Dan, before I left Korea, like 2 100L trash bags full of Japanese mags, most of them from the Mode/Mens Non-kei/Italian and AMerican-keis. I'd say there was like 300-500 in there, haha. Collected over the span of 3 years. I have lived in Japan for 6 months but I have about 100 mags stacked up in a corner of my bedroom already, they're obviously easier to get over here....

I think you are confusing what is your 'aspirational look' vs the final product, we all have aspirational looks and desired stylings, but you know, from a quick glance and without giving it too much thought, I think many would say you do resemble something closer to the left guy on the cover of Men's Knuckle, rather than the styling at the top from SENSE.