The following is dated January 16, 2008. I edited some of it to make more sense.

I truly believe that the names things are recognized by should stay relatively the same worldwide. There's no use giving something a new name when it already has one...it just makes it more confusing for cross-culture communication. For this reason I'm searching for the Japanese terms used to describe Gothic and Lolita boystyles.

The obvious one is Ouji. Most people know that. But there are so many variations on the boy styles...what criteria exactly does Ouji imply?

While searching, I found other names...

--Ouji-loli
--King
--Unisex
--Uni-mens/Uni-otoko
--Goth-ouji

• My first impression of Ouji, upon finding websites and photos, was that it is a men's style (and sometimes women wear it too, but it is adult-man-like, not childish like our Kodona).But when I search only for Ouji, or Ouji-kei, I get so many hits that it's impossible to sift through them all and find the relevant ones. This term is obviously widely used for other things, not just our fashion. For the Ouji-kei search I remember finding a lot about a theater....

  An image search of Ouji turned up a lot of photos of Gackt. (Ouji means Prince, for anyone who might not have known.)




• While Oujiloli seems like an ingenious name, it turns up few relevant webpage hits, and only two pages of images, one of which is a drawing of what I would call a "Sweet Kodona". That's it.




• A blog article claims that magazines call this men's style King, Unisex, or Uni-men (I have to read it more closely), but Unisex turns up many photos of watches (from the same site), Uni-men turns up many photos of diapers, and King turns up a great many random photos, none of which looked anything like boystyle as far as I could tell. In the Unisex search I did find one photo of two young men dressed in Ouji-like attire.




• Gosu-ouji turns up far more relevant hits in the image search, but only three pages of them. While most of them appear Gothloli related, only a handful actually resemble the style I'm looking for.




• For the hell of it, I did an image search for Kodona. I got a ton of hits. Among them were Coolio, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a cute blog, and also some lolita...and I do not mean our kind of lolita. Almost nothing had anything to do with fashion, although I did find one pretty cool cosplayer. I think I also found a photo of someone's pets having sex. Great.In a regular web search there were several hits, but none of them seem to have to do with fashion. I started getting the impression that whatever it is, kodona = something very cute. Then I found this site (the link is dead as of July 9, 2008)...

  Kodona = an adult who is a child at heart.
  Otomo = an adult who never fully became an adult.

  (These are plays on Kodomo+Otona and Otona+Kodomo.)

  I don't know how universal this is, but it makes sense considering all those cute hits I was getting.

  I tend to say it's ok to use the word Kodona for the boyish Ouji styles until we find the proper name, since that's the name everyone knows it by, but that was under the assumption that Kodona didn't mean anything in Japanese. If it does, then we should probably stop using it altogether. Kodona seems to be skimming the waters of Burikko (or "fake child", which is essentially a young adult who acts like an infant in order to be KAWAII, and I think is considered uncool by today's generation), and that is definitely not something that Gothloli typically embraces. It also seems to be paralleling teenybopper, which MOST definitely not something that Gothloli embraces at all.

  I found this kind of amusing.

  VERY Rough Translation:
  (Ok, this makes a LOT more sense after realizing that parents use this term to describe their teenage children. This is probably a parent talking about her daughter(s)!! That makes me really glad, actually, to know there is not some weird subculture of adults with Peter-Pan syndrome, which was my original impression...)

  QUESTION:
  Recently, there seems to be a lot of "kodona"-chan activity!

  Kodona-chans' homes seem to be busy with extracurricular activities such as karaoke, purikura, fashion magazines, and videos.

  Aren't kodona-chan's minds are on summer vacation activities? (<--confusing line...)

  What extracurricular activities are you in?

  BEST ANSWER:
  What is "kodona"-chan?
  "Child" + "Adult"? A child is a child...

  ANSWER 2:
  wtf is kodona??????????????????????

• I also looked up gothloli ouji and ouji fashion, but for the first I got a lot of auctions and stores, and for the second I just came up with a bunch of random men's fashion stuff. I guess the word Ouji is really just descriptive, which is probably how Lolita started, or it just doesn't have as strong an online presence as Lolita.

My conclusions are:
Ouji is a man's style. Common names are Ouji-kei and Goth-Ouji. Some women wear it too, but they still have a masculine air.

Ouji-loli is a girls' style. Baby, Meta, and the popular Lolita brands sell this. It's boyish and a little cute.

Now I am confused...what about those girls' styles that are boyish, but punk or gothic instead of cute? I wonder if that has a name. Maybe it's just Goth-ouji or Punk-ouji, or even simply Goth-Punk.

Maybe this isn't hypocrisy, because I have always believed that while the "rules" of Lolita are completely bogus (which is why I tell you not to listen to the people who tell you what's right and wrong), it still stands that Lolita is the name of a specific fashion. Likewise for Ouji.

Because it is one of my favorite fashions, I strive to understand Ouji and related styles as they are in Japan. I have NEVER come across a style guide that satisfied me and matched what I have learned. It's as though everyone is making up their own styles and calling it the same thing. The style called "Ouji" has already been created--we do not need to make up our own versions.

I strongly believe that the main reason we have so many misinformed Ouji guides is because they are being written by Lolitas rather than Ouji! Ouji is defined by the people who wear it. Like true Lolita, its rules are purely visual and intuitive. This may be another one of the reasons why it is so hard to find a well-written Ouji guide: because it, like most fashions, cannot be confined to words without giving it severe restrictions. Needless to say, I have never come across a Japanese Ouji guide on the internet...or a Lolita one for that matter, although there are at least sites that give basic descriptions of different types of Lolita.

I do my best to understand men's "Gothic and Lolita" fashion without actually being there experiencing it with them. I buy magazines and mooks, I do internet searches on Japanese search engines, I watch Japanese videos on Youtube. I read and observe. I go beyond LiveJournal communities. I do my best. This is all I can offer you.

Overview of Popular Terms

First, I have to get some things off my chest.

There is no such substyle as Dandy.

Dandy fashion was created a long time ago and still exists today as a men's fashion completely unrelated to Gothloli. It is Dandy fashion that modern-day men's formal wear evolved from. Either way, nobody in Japan seems to use the label "Dandy" for any major genre of men's Gothloli styles.

If what you wear looks like something a Dandy would wear, then of course no one is stopping you from calling it "Dandy". But please stop asking Lolitas what Dandy style is, or how to dress it, and if you are a Lolita, please stop telling new people that there is a boy-style called Dandy. There isn't.

There is really no such style as Kodona either, but sometimes I use it anyway to describe the overly cute and childlike boy styles (at the time of writing this essay, this style seems the most popular at LiveJournal). That's because "kodona" stands for "kodomo otona," or "child adult".

It drives me nuts when people describe masculine, aristocratic Ouji outfits as "kodona". This is incorrect vocabulary usage and proves that the person using it does not know what it translates to, or its origin, which is detailed here.

Well, it appears we should ALL stop using this term. "Kodona" is apparently an actual word in Japan that stands for something that seems to be a trait you do not want to brag about.

• In a Yahoo!Japan community with a structure similar to Yahoo!Answers, someone asked for ideas of activities for "kodona-chan"s and was not met with particularly polite responses. Read more here.




• I also found a website that defined "Kodona" as a term for an adult who is a child at heart, as well as "Otomo," an adult who never really grew up.




• Let us not forget a conversation held by Japanese Lolitas regarding the word "kodona" on this infamous Gothloli site (which I happen to believe is one of the few Lolita resources worth reading, as the author has actually done first-hand research). According to one of them, "kodona" is a word parents use to describe their children in the awkward phase of adolescence between childhood and adulthood. Do you remember that phase? Right. I don't want my clothes to be named after that phase either.

Now let's talk about Ouji. There is such a style as Ouji, but NOT ALL menswear in this fashion is considered Ouji. If a man is not Ouji, he is Gothic, Punk, Cyber, a mixture of several of these, or not wearing anything considered Gothloli. (Some people call this style Oujisama or Ouji-kei.)

I don't even think a man's style can be called "Gothloli" even if it's just used as an umbrella term. It's best to just describe the man by what he's wearing, because a man is never "loli" unless he is crossdressing or cosplaying.

The different types of menswear within the English-speaking/non-Japanese version of this subculture do not have agreed-upon labels. This is partially because there is no one person to set the standard and make definitions (whereas Lolitas have Novala Takemoto and the egl community). Another reason labels cannot be agreed upon is because many people use terms like Dandy and Kodona without doing their research, and purists like me refuse to adopt those labels.

Next I will talk about the different styles, but instead of trying to force everything into one huge article, which is taking forever to do, I will discuss them in separate articles. So, if you are interested, please check back every week or so for new style guides.

Shiftie Colors VS by lassekongo8

_{Pink (Startbutton is a heart)
Purple (Startbutton is a heart)
Red (Startbutton is a heart)
Brown (Startbutton is a coffee cup)
Yellow (Shiftie standard startbutton)
Green (Shiftie standard startbutton)
Silver (Shiftie standard startbutton - with some blue)
Orange (Shiftie standard startbutton)
Cyan (Shiftie standard startbutton)}

_{Wallpaper: [link]
Girl: Yukie Kawamura}

Today I'd like to share with everyone--including Lolitas--a pattern I've noticed in the way Japanese seem to break down the fashions in Gothic and Lolita. First, I will describe how the Western breakdowns have evolved, and then I will contrast them with a concept I've dubbed the "Gothic, Lolita, and Punk color wheel". (I'm an artist...give me a break.)

Common Western Breakdown
Much of our interpretation of Gothic and Lolita comes from the internet, namely the egl community hosted by Livejournal. There seems to be a much stronger fascination with Lolita than with any of the other fashions, and this is probably because Lolita is unique to Japan and is new and interesting to non-Japanese.

I often say it would be more appropriate for us to call this fashion phenomenon "Lolita and Aristocrat" rather than "Gothic and Lolita", because Western Lolitas have managed to remove "Gothic" styles from this fashion almost completely, writing them off as "too Western-goth". I think what they mean by including "Gothic" in the fashion title is really just "Lolita and Gothic Lolita and Gothic Aristocrat", but the latter two styles do not appear to be the only Gothic styles that exist in Japan's Gothic and Lolita.

It seems that because of this hyper-Lolita attitude, some tend to believe that Gothic and Lolita has a stronger emphasis on Lolita, which makes no sense. Why wouldn't we just call it "Lolita" if all we meant was Lolita? This is another reason why I believe it would be best for us to begin using the term "Lolita and Aristocrat", or "Lolita and Kodona", or simply "Lolita fashion" when that is all we are speaking of. "Gothic and Lolita" is not a catch-phrase for primarily Lolita fashions; it is used to refer to Gothic as well as Lolita.

One more unfortunate trait in Western Lolita is the strict breakdown of Lolita substyles. They are useful in educating new Lolitas of the most common variations of Lolita, but that's all they are--the most common variations. I have never found the terms "amaloli," "kurololi," and so on in Japanese publications, except on a handful of personal websites. Magazine editors create their own terms to describe each outfit. Japanese Lolitas also tend to say, "My outfit in this photo is pink lolita/white angel/etc.," rather than "Today I am dressed in amaloli."

Yet the first thing Westerners want to know is "What are the substyles of Lolita? Can someone tell me what style my outfit is?" and it's virtually impossible to attend an informational panel or fashion show in the U.S. in which these substyles are not the highlight.

This doesn't mean that the substyles don't exist; it simply means that Westerners over-emphasize them terribly. Lolita is not an abstract umbrella term for Sweet Lolita, Classic Lolita, Princess Lolita, and so on--Lolita is the style itself.

The Gothic and Lolita Color Wheel
Please bear in mind that this is not a Japanese concept, but my own. There is no "official" breakdown of Gothic and Lolita, but there are common ones, and I have attempted to include these in my diagram to my best ability. (I politely request that no one reproduce this idea without crediting me as the author...Thank you!)

In the painter's wheel, there are three primary colors. These are the colors that can be blended to create new colors, but it is literally impossible to create them from any other color. These three colors are the purest forms of Red, Yellow, and Blue.

Similarly, there are three major, or "primary", fashions within Gothic and Lolita. The first two are obviously Gothic and Lolita. The third is less related to these two fashions than they are to each other, but is often blended with them to create new styles, which is why I feel it is appropriate to include Punk in this wheel.

One color can have many values depending on its lightness or darkness. For example, Red can be changed to Pink or a deep Carmine, allowing more than just one color to be produced. Yet all of these colors will still possess a Red hue.

I liken this to the different substyles that can be observed in each of the three primary fashions. Although Sweet and Classical Lolita exist, they are still essentially Lolita.

Next in the color wheel are the secondary colors. These are the colors that are produced by blending two adjacent primary colors. Red and Blue produce Violet, Blue and Yellow produce Green, and Yellow and Red produce Orange.

Likewise, blending two primary fashions in this wheel produces one new fashion for each pair. Gothic and Lolita create Gothic-Lolita; Lolita and Punk create Punk Lolita; and Punk and Gothic create Goth-Punk (which should not be a foreign term to us!).

Many will argue that Gothic Lolita and Punk Lolita should be considered substyles of Lolita; however, I see distinct differences in both fashion aesthetics and social communities. Gothic Lolita and especially Punk Lolita break many of the fashion rules of Lolita--for example, a petticoat and bloomers are not always required. Gothic Lolita also has some roots in Visual-kei, which Lolita, to my knowledge, is in no way associated with. (Sorry VK fans, I couldn't find a better link.)

Of course, the secondary colors have different values just as their primary neighbors do. The same goes for the fashion styles. For example, Erololi (Erotic Lolita) and Gurololi ("Grotesque" or Injured Lolita) tend to embrace Gothic aesthetics, tying them to Gothic Lolita.

Here is the completed color wheel, with the left side representing Punk and the right representing Gothic and Lolita. You will notice that the diagram is heavily weighted on the Gothic and Lolita side. This does not mean that there is less variety on the Punk side. I just don't know as much about Punk fashions as I do about Gothic and Lolita. If you are drawn to Punk aesthetics, I encourage you to do your own research too.

Please click the diagram for a larger image.

Another similarity between the artist's color wheel and my color wheel is this: just as opposite colors (or, colors across the wheel from each other--for example, yellow and violet) contain no traces of each other, neither do opposite fashions (such as Lolita and Goth-Punk) contain traces of each other. Not only does pure Lolita not have an ounce of Goth-punk influence, the communities are also made up of different people with different interests. The same can be said for Gothic vs. Punk Lolita, and Gothic Lolita vs. Punk. This does not mean that they are so separate, they will never cross paths or share some members; after all, they are part of the same wheel.

This is as far as the similarities between the color wheel and Gothic and Lolita fashion can take us. I'm afraid that there are a few fashions I'm not able to place. The major one is Ouji-kei or Kodona style; it evolved from Lolita but is not a type of Lolita, because it is masculine rather than feminine. Would it be a type of Gothic, Punk, or it's own unique style?

I expect to tweak this wheel continually as I discover more information and draw new conclusions (and make better images with a different program). I hope that you, too, will use this diagram not as a Golden Rule, but as an enhancement to your own findings.