Gyaru ( ギャル , Gal) is a Japanese subculture that was born as a rebellion against the traditional Asian beauty standards of being pale and showing little skin. While gyaru is generally associated with a particular style, the importance lies in the bold makeup and overall vibe of the outfits rather than wearing a specific fashion. The point is to challenge societal norms by embracing a bold and unapologetic identity that stands out in the crowd.

The term "Gyaru" is derived from the Japanese spelling of the English word "gal". When it first came into use in Japan during the 1970s, it was mainly used to refer to young, lively women. Only during the 1990s, after Gyaru’s predecessor Bodikon spread in popularity, the term became associated with the subculture of the same name, which highly attracted the attention of the media due to the sheer amount of its followers in Shibuya with their heavy makeup and bleached hair. This specifically happened when Bodikon began to “radicalise” (the look became more extreme, with dyed “chapatsu” (brown), red, and blonde hair, and tanned skin, with barely-there clothing). Before it became a subculture, the style was mainly associated with the fans of the Japanese singer Namie Amuro, who was embracing her tan typical for Okinawans in a time where pale skin was the norm, and the fans imitating her style.

At the height of its popularity, it was not rare to see celebrities (not even just Japanese ones) sporting this style. The tanned skin, big hair, and rebellious outfits went highly against the traditional Japanese beauty standards. While Gyaru appeared very extreme in the past, it toned down as time went on. This can be attributed to a couple of factors; the ageing of many "original" Gyaru from the 1990s and early 2000s into middle-aged people, the continued recession in Japan resulting in a "fatigue" of extreme styles, and the increasingly tame beauty standards of young Japanese people today.

Since the 2020s, there has been a renewed interest in Gyaru fueled by the Heisei Retro boom causing a increased demand for nostalgic styles that were prevalent during the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, to an extent, the outfits have toned down a bit, especially in Japanese communities, with younger “reiwa” gyaru, meaning those who got into the subculture as of 2019, having stark differences to the older “heisei” gyaru. There has also been other changes in the community, like a preference for online shopping on fast fashion sites like Shein rather than shopping for brands in malls, interacting with other gyaru on social media rather than meeting up in public, International/online gal circles becoming more popular, and vlogging and posting on places like Instagram and Tiktok as opposed to blogging. While printed media dedicated to gyaru has mostly become a thing of the past over being able to catch up with the constantly changing trends, there are multiple online magazines "by the community for the community" where gals have taken informing about the latest news within the subculture into their own hands.

In the 2020s, a trend started for elementary school girls to wear Gyaru fashion with customized randoseru. The Kogyaru magazine starting in 2023 is based around this trend. The magazine and trend received backlash for sexualization of children and parents exploiting their children for money.

“Neo-Gyaru” is an attempt to revitalize the Gyaru style, ongoing since around the late 2010s, during its decline. Neo-Gyaru is notable for its more international adherents when compared to original Gyaru. But when the style reached popularity or even realization that it existed, the Gyaru community reacted in a completely different way then what some anticipated; they completely shunned the style. However, those who were wearing said fashion were not using the same fashion style as before or in its traditional form from apparel to their makeup.

While Gyaru is mainly defined by its overall styling instead of the clothes worn, there's multiple styles popular among the subculture.

Classic

American Casual ( Amekaji )

Hostess ( Agejo )

Princess  ( Hime )

Rock (Rokku)

Princess Casual ( Himekaji )

Makeup is a central facet of the Gyaru style, and is what separates the many varied fashions from other similar aesthetics. There are differences in makeup depending on the era, but both old and modern Gyaru styling has in common that the focus on eye-enlarging makeup. In the past, this was archived by drawing an exaggerated bottom lash line in combination with wearing multiple layers of fake lashes, but over the years it has become a lot more common to use circle lenses in combination with "eye bag" makeup for a similar effect.

Some key motifs for makeup are:

As Gyaru is opposing traditional Japanese beauty standards, there are many people who bleach their hair to an unnatural shade of blonde, but pink and silver dyes are also popular. There is a tendency for wavy-to-curly hairstyles, with long hair being the most popular as it is easier to accessorize.

Gyaru-moji ( ギャル文字 ) is a style of writing that was popularized by gyaru in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It involves replacing standard Japanese characters with similar-looking symbols, numbers, or letters to create a rebellious form of text messaging. The substitutions are often quite creative and require some effort to decipher. For example, the hiragana character け (ke) might be replaced with the combination †=, ‡, l+.

Gyaru-moji was initially used as a way for girls to communicate privately with each other making their messages difficult for others (especially parents and teachers) to understand, similar to hackers using leetspeak . The visually complex and unconventional nature of gyaru-moji was also seen as fashionable and cute, aligning with the overall gyaru aesthetic of standing out and breaking norms.

A Gyarusa (also known as a Gal Circle) is a group of gyarus, similar to that of a club, who meet to participate in activities together. Gyarusas can be as small as 3 members, to as big as hundreds of members. Depending on the gyarusa, meets can be as frequent as on a weekly basis to as infrequent a once every few months. While some gyarusas are just a casual group of close friends, many can be large organized groups that go through auditions, recruitment, graduations, and have generations of members.

A popular dance style associated with the Gyaru subculture is Para-Para (パラパラ). It consists of simple synchronized dance movements, mainly focusing on the arms. The choreographies tend to be fun, energetic and repetitive, typically performed to Eurobeat, Eurodisco and Italo Disco music. It was popularized among Gyarus during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

This list contains works that either center around Gyaru or are heavily inspired by its aesthetic.

Throughout the history of gyaru, it has always been seen as controversial both in Japan and internationally for several reasons.

In Japan, during the 90s, the style Kogyaru was associated with enjo kōsai ( 援助交際 ), also known as compensated dating. Some high school girls would perform sexual services or go on dates with older men in exchange for money or luxury goods. Although not all kogyaru do this, due to the subculture's bad reputation and the associated stereotypes alongside it, they were often criticized for it.

Ganguro and its subcategories are known for their heavy tan, sometimes to the point where outsiders to the subculture claim they are trying to look like a different race, specifically targeting Black people. However, with Ganguro being long past its heyday and almost extinct, having an overly unnatural tan is rarely seen nowadays. There also has been controversy about Gyaru wearing B-Kei fashion as the tanned skin in combination with hip-hop style fashion could be interpreted as cultural appropriation , even though the fashion style is now extremely rare.

Due to its similarities to depictions of bimbos , such as having tanned skin, blonde/colorful hair, promoting sex positivity, wearing flashy clothes/accessories, and materialistic ideals, many have associated gyaru with bimbos, even mixing the two. This has caused controversy in the gyaru community, as even though the subculture is technically sex-positive, it is not the same as bimbo culture. Many also do not want to associate with it due to its connotations, the fact that gyaru is not inherently sexual, and the fact that many gyarus are minors. However, there is still a community of gyaru who do not mind being associated with the term, and even identify as bimbos themselves.

Often times in media, especially media made by non-gals, gyarus are misrepresented and given the "mean/popular girl" trope. This may be due to the fact that the gyaru style is similar to what many would consider "the popular girl" in western movies. Gyarus are often shown to be bullies who are overly concerned with the way they look and are narcissistic. They are also shown to be promiscuous and are either obsessed with boys or are seen as attractive by them. Sometimes they have their own "clique" (similar to how actual gals have gal circles) where they gossip, are always on their phones, and are rude to what many would see as otaku . A popular example of this stereotype would be the Bullies from Yandere Simulator .

Although these stereotypes are technically not true, gals are known for being very blunt and honest, which could  also contribute to the reason for this stereotype existing in the first place. It is also noted that, just like any other community, rude gyaru exist, but they do not speak for all the community.