Finland goes Agepoyo!! フィンランドが「アゲぽよ」にした！！

Gyaru-style and Japanese culture has gained popularity all over the world recently but Finland seems to be number one, so I just had to go there and see it for myself! =)

In the latest issue of EGG there's an article about the famous EGG-models Yumachi and Aina's trip to Finland.

They went there in November last year to perform at the Japan/Gyaru-convention Tsukicon which 
4000 people from around Scandinavia and Europe attended!
They also recorded their new music video in Finland. So excited to see it!^^

One of the people I was gonna meet is Viivi which probably has the most popular gyaru-blog outside Japan together with Thai-Swedish Foki in the picture to the right.


It seems like everybody that's intrested in Japan in Finland knows about Viivi's blog Cupcake Couture.

Viivi is in the Finnish "Web Awards" for blogs. 



Foki has one of the most read blogs in Sweden and her favorite magazine is EGG.^^
Sweden's biggest newspaper Aftonbladet thought it was a scandal when she had been shopping for huge amounts of money in Shibuya 109.

First I met Viivi, Tuomas to the right of me, and then one more Tuomas to his right and Milla and Sofia, 
in front of me, at a café in the central shopping mall Kamppi in Helsinki.

After being a year in Japan the food in Scandinavia feels gigantic! :O

Tuomas was an interesting person. He's style is more Visual Kei than Gyaru and he makes a lot of clothes himself.
He said he liked to add things from all kind of places the environment to his outfits. Everywhere from window curtains to the nature.

Tuomas fingers were also really interesting! =)
If you wanna read the blog that these fingers write, click here!

Milla and Sofia that goes to the same fashion school were so nice and sweet!^^
Millas nails was painted like the brittish flag.


Milla also likes video games like me and said she could play the game to the right, Persona 4, for 9 hours straight sometimes.

I wanna do that too, because the story and gameplay seems extremley intresting and the character design is amazing.

But I only have the Japanese version so unfortunatley I can't understand enough, but that's a good motivation to continue study! ;D 


Read Milla's blog Sugar-Trick here!

The two Tuomas! A great team! =)
Read the second Tuomas stylish blog here.

Sasha, from Germany, and Katrin that lives in Switzerland but originally is from Finland joined
after a while! =)

Katrin got a cool blog right here!

Picture of Katrin hugging EGG-model Aina in the latest EGG-issue.
Second picture from lower right corner.

Katrin and Viivi doing a dangerous pose! ;)



Viivi next to Yumachi and Aina ------->

Viivi, Katrin, Rebecca, Sasha, Sofia, Monica and many more European gyaru together with Yumachi
and Aina.

That photo made it into EGG. Agepoyo!! :D

Yumachi was voted the gyaru with best outfits of 2010.
She uploaded a picture of herself together with Rebecca after Tsukicon.


You can read Yumachi's blog here!

And Aina's blog here!

One of Viivi's best friends Arttu also came! =)
He writes the blog Vivid Beat!

Everybody is in da house!! ;D

We didn't bring any camerman so we took photos of eachother like in these videos! ;)

While we were at the café there were some big Japan-related meeting going on in 
the other side of the mall.

Went over there to talk with them and seems like they were getting together CosPlaying* and hanging around in Manga-cafés and stores with Japanese stuff.

*CosPlay = Costume Play

I was wondering why they brought a Turkish and Belgian flag and not a Japanese one, but I think that's because they're doing CosPlay from an animé where different characters are different
countries personified?

I was also amused by the fact that the person to the left brought a frying pan!^^
It reminds me of when we met some Japanese people that brought a doll head with them when they were going out partying in Shibuya... :D

Bringing a doll to the club head is the best "ice-breaker" and conversation starter ever!! ^^

Meeting a happy group of people with a doll head 5 in the morning is just part of daily life in Tokyo... 

 




































There's everything from claws to white hair and roses in there!!^^
Agepoyoooo!!!

There's nice people with Japanese style everywhere in Finland! =D

When I was going to the toilet I met these two that joked and said they were sitting in their own little "Emo-corner". Emo = Emotional (Usually negative emotions)

One of them had a really cool bag! =)

Some of the Finnish people showed me a very nice store with Japanese goods called "blippo".

Mjau!

Exactly what Tuomas needs to make his outfit complete? ;D

In the entrance there's a big picture of Shibuya 109.
Blippo was such a good store so it almost felt like you were in Shibuya 109! :)

On the walls the fashionable districts of Tokyo are written down.

They had figures of "Hachune Miku" there. The story behind that character is really weird...

Hatsune Miku is a Japanese vocaloid. Vocaloid = Vocal + Android.
She's a music super star that doesn't exist for real.
So if you go to her concerts you will only see a digital projection of her.

The onion spring she is holding originally comes from a video of the character Orihime from the animé Bleach spinning an onion spring while a Finnish song from the 1930's called Levan Polkka performed by the band Loituma is playing in the background.




This video became extremley popular known as "Loituma Girl" all over the world including Japan with more than nine million views.

The Japanese company Yamaha that made Hatsune Miku made a promotional video of her singing this song while spinning an onion spring just like "Loituma Girl".

It became so popular that they had to make the Hatsune Miku with an onion spring into a new character called "Hachune Miku".

Milla holding the world's most popular onion spring! ;D

Another of the vocaloid Hatsune Miku's songs is the Swedish song "Caramelldansen". 
Translation: The Caramel Dance



It's the only song with Swedish lyrics you can sing at Karaoke in Japan.
Pretty funny that nobody in Sweden knows about the most popular Swedish song in Japan ever.

The lesson is that if you want to become famous in Japan, you should make somthing very very strange...

So much funny things in this store!!^^

Blippo is like a small part of Japan in Finland! :D
Thanks for showing it to me and thanks to the people working in blippo for letting me take photos inside!

Two of Tuomas cool friends came to the store while we were looking around.

I loved the hat the girl is wearing. She had bought it at the store "JC".

Went to JC and bought the last one they had from this shop staff.

Thumbs up for the JC-hat! =)

Also saw some nice triple-jeans! :D

Ate with the hat in a restaurant Milla had been working in before.

Goofing around with the camera again!^^
I was pretty suprised Viivi were not wearing fake nails, it's actually her real nails.

Tuoma, Viivi and Arttu tried having a conversation in Swedish here! =D
Funniest video ever hahaha... But only if you understand Swedish. :/



Translation:

Tuoma: -"Goodbye, my name is Tuomas. Do you wanna go have a coffe with me?"

Viivi: -"Hello, my name is Viivi. I hate the dog. I live in Helsinki."

Arttu: -"I can't speak Swedish."

Viivi: -"Yes you can! Just say what you wanna say."

Then we went to another shopping mall called Stockmann which was
a bit similar to "Åhlens" in Sweden.

Inside they sold the Moomin-soda!!^^
Moomin is originally from Finland where the Moomin Land also is located.
The Moomin Land is like Disney Land but with Moomin instead of Mickey Mouse! =D

Moomin was first books and comics made by Finnish author Tove Jansson.

The comics are pretty deep with a lot of satire. One summer when I had nothing to do I read
through most of them. So good!!^^

Japanese TV made Moomin into a more child-friendly TV-series which is showed in more than 40 countries.


In Japan nobody knows what The Simpsons, Family Guy or South Park is, but everybody knows Moomin. You can buy Moomin-related things everywhere and when I go to rent Moomin DVD's at video stores here it's always rented out.

I think it's not strange at all that Japanese people like Moomin so much because it's cute but at the same time very mysterious like many Japanese animés.


I wish Tove Jansson was still alive to see how popular her work got in a country on the other side of the world!

A funny thing about the Moomin-soda is that by the time you drunk it up, Moomin-papa will have
grown a beard!! :O

No... It's just a fake eye-lash that Tuomas found in his hair. XD

Nemoya does a "Moomin-papa" in EGG's eye-tutorial. :)

Before some people left we took this group photo family photo!!^^

They had some nice winter decorations in the shopping mall.
If Tuomas makes career as a Visual-Kei artist this should be the album cover!! ;D

Before my flight back to Sweden I went to a Finnish night club which was nice, except for one thing: People were actually dancing here!! :O

I felt so uncomfortable!! :/
Night clubs aren't about dancing, it's about setting up your hair for 5 hours and then just look at the DJ while you move your finger a little bit at the most, like in Japan! ;D

Luckily Sofia and her friend was there so I could avoid all kinds of dancing!^^

Visiting Finland and meeting everybody was amazing which Yumachi and Aina says as well
in the latest EGG.
It's sold out all over Tokyo so every gyaru knows that now!^^

In the end of the Finland-article in EGG it says:

世界が「アゲぽよ」した - "Sekai ga Agepoyo shita" which means:


The world has gone Agepoyo!!! 

Finland Street Snap #1

Went to Helsinki in Finland to meet Viivi and some other cool Finnish people.
But before I met them I took street snaps of random fashionable people. =)

These two friends looking like models walked by in a shopping center in Helsinki.
Very nice and smart outfits I think. Scandinavian but not too simple.

I don't remember even one person that was unfriendly in Finland.
Everybody was nice and helpful, no matter if you asked about taking photos or the way somewhere. 

That makes me really happy to be 1/4 Finnish!^^

Agepoyo World Tour!!

Just came back from Finland where I met the awesome people on this picture.
Gyaru from Finland, Germany and Switzerland!^^
I also been around Sweden a little bit meeting people with Japanese style and very soon my
flight back to Japan leaves.

9th January it's time for EGG Youth Party and I will hopefully meet some Gyaru from
America and other countries! =)
Let's call it "The Agepoyo World Tour"!! ;)

When I'm back in Japan I will post a lot of pictures and videos from it! :)

Sweden Street Snap #2

Still can't believe I found these two walking around in Rilakkuma and Ko-Rilakkuma-suits in the shopping center "Gallerian" in central Stockholm.

Rilakkuma is the fifth most popular character in Japan.

Pictures from "Gallerian".

You can clearly see what people usually dress like here.

So you can imagine it wasn't very hard to notice these two. ^^
I've seen people dressing like this in Japan-conventions in Sweden, but never in the streets.

Rilakkuma(the brown bear) is a true super star in Japan.
He's name is a combination of the the words "Relaxed" and "Kuma" which means "bear" in Japanese. Rilakkuma = "The Relaxed Bear".

The white bear Ko-Rilakkuma loves to play pranks on Rilakkuma while he's sleeping, 
like drawing on him...
He never says a word but sometimes imitates Rilakkuma. XD


And then we have my favorite, the hard-working bird "Ki-Iro-Tori" that hates
everything about Rilakkuma and criticizes others for making mistakes. :/

Interview with Kawaii TV!!

Some days before I went to Sweden Jenny, her french friend Diane and me was interviewed by a TV-team from the show Kawaii TV that airs every wednesday in Japan on the channel NHK.

This interview was not filmed though, it was only a test interview to get to know us. but the TV-team wants to make a show about it if they get OK from the channel. 

Jenny had been talking about that Kawaii TV wanted to meet them because some foreigner had told them about her. She thought it was me but I haven't talked to them before.

Some days later Maria, Said and me had just finished the photoshoot for ELLE when I saw Jenny and Diane standing next to Shibuya crossing.

I asked what they were standing around waiting for and the next second the TV-team comes up and said that all of us could come to the interview so that was a fun suprise. =)


Here's a short video from the café where we got interviewed:



Jenny's Japanese is sooo good I can't believe it. Before she came to Japan in April 2010 she had been studying it for about five years in France.

My Japanese still kinda sucks compared to Jenny and Diane but I did my best during the interview...!! XD


Here's a little bit of what they asked us: 

Kawaii TV: -"Jenny, what are you doing in Japan?"

Jenny: -"I study at a school for drawing Manga, work at the shop Bumble Bee in Shibuya 109 and will soon start to do modeling". 

Kawaii TV: -"So would you like to become a Manga artist in the future?"

Jenny: -"That was my dream originally but I don't really know anymore."

Kawaii TV: -"What do like to sing at Karaoke?"

Jenny: -"Songs from the korean band "Big Bang".

The Kawaii TV-team on the right side of me.

Kawaii TV: -"Diane, do you have a boy friend?"

Diane: -"Yes I'm engaged with a Japanese guy I met in France".

Kawaii TV: -"Is he a Gyaru-O?" (Gyaru-boy)

Diane: -"No he's he's normal".

Kawaii TV: -"Fredrik, why did you wanna go to Japan?"

Me: -"I played Japanese video games since I was 5 years old and later started to like Animé and Japanese movies. Then I got fascinated by the fashion and culture here." 

Kawaii TV: -"So what's your favorite Animé?"

Me: -"Death Note and Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei." (Translation: So long, Teacher Despair) 

Kawaii TV: -"Do you have a dream for the future?"

Me: -"I would love to make a reality show similar to MTV's "The Hills" about young Japanese people's life. The scene would be Shibuya instead of Hollywood."


It was a lot of fun doing the interview and I recently heard that Kawaii TV might do a documentary about Jenny's life here. Exciting!!^^