much ado about puffy

[Aaron Gerow]

About the cute: I remember buying copies of such fashion magazines as 
Cutie about 5 years ago and seeing plenty of models just like Puffy. It 
was just one of the cute styles at the time.

That said--and to get things a bit more on track--I was struck how the 
animators have decided to portray them. Although the music video on the 
site shows them in their usual jeans, the animated characters have been 
designed to emphasize a kind of Mutt and Jeff combination, with Ami 
being the "ultra-preppy schoolgirl chic" (to quote the website) with 
her kind of 60s miniskirt and flower in her hair (no blue jeans here!) 
and Yumi being "the hardest rocking chick in showbiz" with dark 
eyeliner, spiked neck band, skull T-shirt and boots. Maybe a narrative 
necessity, but it is always interesting to see how Japanese items are 
being repackaged for the US and what image of Japan is being created as 
a result.

Aaron Gerow
KineJapan owner

Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University

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