Appealing to Teenage Girls in Harajuku

Yesterday, I spent most of my morning exploring youth culture in Harajuku. Upon leaving the exit of Harajuku station, I was immediately greeted with the loud, bustling entrance of Takeshita Street and it didn’t take long to notice how stores had multiple methods to attract their target audience of teenage girls in this 400-meter-long street.

For this drug store, the shop owners first used a comic-like font, which implies that the store is informal and designed for children and teenagers. Apart from the comic-like font, the store also utilized bright, poppy colors both in their choice of products as well as in their price tags, both of which serve to attract the eyes of teenage girls walking down Takeshita street, as discussed in class. It is important to note the choice to place character face masks at the very front, as it is likely that these characters are prevalent among Japanese youth culture and are being sold as a form of fanshii guzzu, which if you don’t remember from my first blog post, “are goods that are small, cute, decorative personal items often marketed to young women” (Occhi).

Like the drug store, the snack store uses a comic-like font for their characters and bright colours, which is further emphasized here with the black background, to appeal to the eyes of people walking down the street. Additionally, it was also discussed in class how the prices of goods in Harajuku was much lower in comparison to other places like Shibuya, Shinjuku and Akihabara. This is likely because stores understand their target audience consists of teenage girls and as such will not have much money to spend when they shop.

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On first glance, this store may seem like a counter example to the first two pictures I had as this store is the opposite of colourful with its bland, grey walls. However, with the help of K-pop blasting through speakers on the outside, this idol store does not need anything else to draw both teenage girls and young adults (including me) into the store. While its appearance may look vastly different in comparison to other stores around the area, the inside is similar, with idol posters and idol related merchandise on sale. The merchandise here as seen on the rack includes fans, pens, rulers, hair ties and bag decorations, all of which are goods marketed towards teenage girls. With most items costing less than 1000 yen, the store further encourages teenage girls to come shop as they wouldn’t break the bank by doing so, as seen in the third photo, in which every customer is female.

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The images above depict a sweets store that specializes in rainbow coloured cotton candy. Following the theme of using bright colours, the storefront and product itself is very colorful, attracting countless teenage girls and some young adults, as seen above. It is also similar to the idol store as it is mainly young females that are shopping. In these pictures, not only are they eating the cotton candy, but they are also taking photos and likely sharing said photos on their social media, another important aspect of youth culture in Japan, which was briefly discussed in class as well.

Having visited Takeshita street before, it was interesting to see how many seemingly obvious things I missed after putting on my critical lenses on for this trip, making this visit feel like an entirely new experience despite little changes to the street itself.

Occhi, Debra J. “Kumamon: Japan’s Surprisingly Cheeky Mascot.” Introducing Japanese Popular Culture, edited by Alisa Freedman and Toby Slade, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018, pp. 13-23