In Japan and Japanese media, there exists a subculture known as ''Gyaru'', or "Gal" culture. This subculture often involves the exaggerated emulation and use of popular Western fashion trends, tanned skin, dyed hair, and excessive use of makeup. Gyaru culture is split into three subcultures: Kogal, Ganguro, and Yanmanba. Gyaru adherents are almost Always Female, but there do exist rare male variants, who are referred to as Gyaru-o. Initially created from the rebellious attitudes embraced by Japanese Delinquents, the cultures originated in the 1970s, and gained popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Far from being an underground thing, the Gyaru style actually has a huge influence on Japanese fashion trends, even today.
The relationship between female Japanese delinquents and Gyaru is complex. Not all delinquents are Gyaru nor all Gyaru are delinquents, especially in recent decades, where both things have followed more divergent roads, but there is still some overlap between them, especially given that Gyaru subculture is certainly a form of rebellion against traditional Japanese social rules. Compensated Dating and other barely legal ways to earn income for their lifestyle are the kind of crimes common Gyaru are most likely to commit.
- Kogal girls are often identified by wearing school uniforms along with super short skirts, loose socks, and sometimes platform shoes. It's not uncommon to see them have dyed hair either. The Harajuku and Shibuya districts of Tokyo serve as centers for kogal culture. Committed kogal girls will wear short skirts all year-round, even in the winter and rainy seasons.
- Ganguro girls exemplify artificially tanned skin, blonde hair, and liberally applied contrasting makeup. It began as a reaction against traditional Japanese standards of beauty (namely pale skin, dark hair, and neutral makeup tones) and open defiance of school standards and regulations. There's also a negative view that ganguros Really Get Around thanks to indulging in compensated dating more than the average Gyaru. The Shibuya and Ikebukuro districts of Tokyo served as centers for Ganguro culture. The trend reached the peak of its popularity in the mid to late 90s, and has mostly faded away, but lived on with the Yamanba style, and the internet helped bring it back into awareness.
- Yamanba and Manba styles were both developed from ganguro. Taking another step further, Yamanba often involves even darker tanned skin, a white stripe of makeup down the nose, facial stickers, glittery adhesives below the eyes, dayglo-colored clothing, and unusual accessories such as Hawaiian leis. Yamanba is inspired by the typical depictions of the Yama-Uba, with the main difference between the two being that manba doesn't use as much white makeup.
Gyaru Girls will often have their fashion style pointed out in the narrative. Compare The Fashionista, and compare and contrast with the Western equivalent Valley Girl, which gyaru are often given the speech patterns of in English dubs. See also Nonconformist Dyed Hair, for examples outside the gyaru subculture/s that dye hair to subvert societal norms. Gyaru subculture developed in response to, and is therefore to some extent a deliberate inversion of, the more traditional feminine ideal of the Yamato Nadeshiko.
Examples:
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Advertising
- "Phone"
, a Japanese anti-drug PSA, subtly plays to a common stereotype of gyaru girls being into prostitution and drugs by showing a smiling teenage girl slowly becoming disheveled with every mobile-phone text shown; her hair turns lighter while her skin gets tanned while sporting a more aggressive expression, not helped at all by her zombie-like appearance after the last text, which is basically the word "HELP ME" written over and over.
Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You: Ahko, Girlfriend #18, is explicitly called a gyaru when introduced: she loves cute and trendy things, wears a huge number of accessories (including some sort of black lacy thing beneath her shirt), and has wavy blonde hair with pink tips usually tied up in an off-center ponytail (this being a World of Technicolor Hair, the pink tips are natural, since she had them as a baby). She later suggests that Karane (Girlfriend #2, who also rocks blonde hair and big loose socks) is kinda gyaru-ish as well, to which she agrees.
Rentarou: She's a total gyaru... or, well, extremely accessorised at least. She's so friendly and easy to talk to.
- 2.5 Dimensional Seduction:
- Aria Kisaki embodies the kogal variant, as she has bleached blonde hair and an outgoing personality. She later puts on tanning cream that makes her look like the ganguro version of the trope, though it's used to mimic the skin tone of a character she's dressing up as for the manga club's group cosplay.
- Aria's mother used to be a ganguro gyaru, as she had tan skin and blonde hair in high school, but later lost both aspects when she got married.
- Tsubaki Hana, who is normally the Ojou of the cast, is roped into dressing like a gyaru by Aria. Thanks to Tsubaki's already naturally blonde hair, some tanning cream, and ear piercings, Tsubaki is able to pass herself off as ganguro gal during the manga club's trip to Shibuya. Aria tries to get Tsubaki to imitate various gyaru mannerisms as well.
- Akiba Maid War: Shino "Shiipon" Gotou follows the ganguro trend with artificially tanned skin, blonde dyed hair, and excessive make-up. The fourth episode puts her at odds with instructor Sano, who believes that such make-up isn't appropriate for the maid culture. She drops the makeup to put up Sano's brutal indoctrination routine, but goes back to wearing it once she is out of the picture.
- Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day: Naruko "Anaru" Anjou became a gyaru sometime after Menma died. She paints her nails, styles her hair and dyes it red, wears false eyelashes, and probably uses her earnings from her part-time job to buy outfits. Her friends Haruna and Aki also have gyaru tendencies.
- Bad Girl (2021): Suzu is a tall blonde girl with a loose tie and sweater and a laidback attitude. One bonus chapter has a trio of classmates delivering handouts to her home, and it's titled, "When I Went to Visit a Gyaru's House..."
- BanG Dream!: Lisa Imai from Roselia and Tōko Kirigaya from Morfonica are referred as gyarus by other characters. While they both wear their uniforms properly, they fit under the kogal style because they like wearing the trending fashion without tanning their skins and have colorful hair, which is light brown in case of Lisa and blonde in case of Tōko (though they could be natural as the setting is that of a World of Technicolor Hair). Lisa even used to color her nails and keep them long before trimming them to properly play the bass once she joins Roselia, while Tōko leverages her gyaru status to be a social media influencer and model.
- Case Closed: One case is centered on the gyaru culture. The gyarus Michiko, Ryouko and Tae and the yamanba Hitomi are attacked and beaten up by an unknown assailiant, and Tae ends up being beaten to death. It's because Tae accidentally ran a boy with her car and the boy's grieving father started attacking women who reminded him of her, especially if they wore platform boots since she was wearing those when she caused the accident.
- Citrus: Yuzu is a Kogal, with bleached blond hair, makeup, school uniform skirt hiked way up, jewelry, the works. This causes considerable friction with the extremely straight-laced school she attends, as well as her prim-and-proper adoptive sister (and secret crush) who is the Student Council President there.
- Dandadan: Main heroine Momo Ayase is of the Kogal variant, being very focused on fashion outside of school and wearing a short skirt and loose socks with her uniform. Two of her friends are Kogal gals as well, with one of them wearing distinctly manba-style makeup, though she does go some days without white makeup. At one point, she even says her clothing style is gyaru.
- The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.: Aiura Mikoto is an example of the ganguro subtype. Downplayed, though, because she wears the school uniform the same way as everyone else.
- Flowers And Bees: The series features a Girl Posse of 3 kogals, including love interest Sakura Ota, who doesn't tan, but spends her time going to clubs and Love Hotels instead of studying.
- Food Wars!: Ikumi Mito initially looks this trope due to her brown skin, blond hair and her Stripperific outfit, notably her iconic USA Flag Bikini. Then a flashback of her is shown, revealing that she already had the skin and hair color as a child, and she was wearing a dress that made her look like a little princess (she's from a rich family, which explains why she was working with Erina Nakiri who hates commoners), meaning she is a natural dark-skinned blonde. Her current choice of fashion is a result of a trauma, when her father condemned her girly interests as a weakness for her status as a future heir, thus she developed into The Lad-ette.
- Gal Gohan's main female lead Okazaki Miku and her friends are all kogals, though Miku does have some stylings from the ganguro fashion. Interestingly, despite being called the school's number one gal, she's the only one who doesn't have any sexual experience until the end of the manga on her wedding night.
- Gals!: The series focuses entirely on Gyaru culture, specifically after the subculture burst back into the scene throughout the 90's. The three main characters Miyu, Ran, and Aya, are all kogals. Miyu and Ran both have dyed hair, all three of them wear trendy clothing, and spend most of their time outside of school in Shibuya, a hub of urban trends and activity.
- Genshiken: Sasahara's sister Keiko led a kogal lifestyle in high school, obviously influenced by peer pressure. She wears heavy layers of make-up on her face, paints her nails and her hair is often styled to whatever is popular at the moment.
- Ghost Reaper Girl: Nyarlathotep's human form consists of a tanned, blonde-haired woman in a Naughty Nurse Outfit, with lighter-colored marks under her eyes.
- Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable!: the titular gal Minami Fuyuki dyes her hair blonde, wears short skirts in winter, and doesn't wear gloves so she can still use her phone. Her friends Sayuri Akino and Rena Natsukawa also qualify as well.
- I Am a High School Boy, but I Got Gender-Swapped Into a Gyaru: Has Gyarus galore. The protagonist Junpei is transformed into a Gyaru by a Gyaru Goddess who is herself a Chibi-Gyaru. Junpei, now Junpoyo, then attends a school where all the students and faculty are Gyarus. Junpei’s mom is also a former Gyaru. Most of these Gyarus, including the protagonist, are Kogals, which fits the school setting.
- Kaguya-sama: Love is War: Hayasaka dresses in kogal fashion as part of her school persona. She claims that it's for the sake of her job (she fostered a friendship with the resident chatty kogals Mirin and Subaru to keep track of the various rumors around school), but it's pretty clear that she enjoys it.
- Kaiju Girl Caramelise: Raimu "Rairi" Kouno has several traits of the kogal subculture, having dyed blonde hair, wearing long decorated nails and a lot of accessories, and being known as a pretty and popular girl who's an expert on makeup. However, the reason she's so skilled with makeup is so she can use it to hide her unattractive face, which is a source of trauma for her thanks to an incident in middle school.
- The Klutzy Class Monitor and the Girl with the Short Skirt: Poemu and her best friends, Motoko Akina and Rui Tasaki, are all gyaru. They also call the Student Council President's sexy appearance her "gal version" and before they knew who she was, assumed she was a "super lewd gyaru".
- Komi Can't Communicate: Rumiko Manbagi started off as a manba gyaru (get it?), before she abandoned that style in favor of a fusion between ganguro and kogal.
- Maho Girls PreCure!note : Benigio talks like a gyaru (which is naturally rendered as a Valley Girl accent in the fansubs), what makes this even funnier is that she's voiced by Kikuko Inoue.
- Metamorphosis: After Saki starts doing sex work to help pay off her boyfriend Hayato's debts, she goes for the ganguro look by getting a deep tan, bleached blonde hair, tattoos, and piercings.
- More Than a Married Couple, But Not Lovers: Akari Watanabe, the main female lead, is of the kogal style, and is explicitly referred to as a gyaru in the story. Her school uniform even has cutouts on the shoulders to leave them bare, making her stand out from her classmates even more.
- My Dress-Up Darling: The female lead, Marin Kitagawa, follows closely the kogal look by default, as she's most often seen in her school uniform. She also has bright-colored hair dye, red contacts, colored nail polish, and miniskirt, alongside other accessories. At one point she even gets her skin tanned for a cosplay, making her look like a ganguro.
- My First Girlfriend Is a Gal: The series is basically a romantic comedy involving an Ordinary High-School Student entering into a relationship of sorts with a Gyaru. With lots of added Fanservice.
- Nana: Nana K's sister Nami is "still a ganguro girl." She is tanned and open about sexual matters.
- Nyan Koi!: Kanako is introduced wearing Yamanba makeup. Many characters find it rather grotesque, but she didn't care. Junpei himself calls her the "Demon Yamanba", but she points out that she's a manba, not a yamanba. The reason she got into it in the first place seems to extend back to her and Junpei's childhood, where she began seeking his attention more and more, even though he never saw her as anything special. After showing her that he still cares about her in his own ways, she abandons the style altogether.
- Osomatsu-san: Jyushiko, Jyushimatsu's Distaff Counterpart among the Girly Matsus, exemplifies the Ganguro subtype, with her having the darkest skin, heavy makeup, and yellow hair. She's also implied to be a lot more promiscuous than her male counterpart.
- Ouran High School Host Club: Haruhi's friend Mei is a dark tanned girl who reads magazines for 'gals in love'. She's an amateur fashion designer, who focuses on love and hobbies more than her summer homework.
- Peach Girl: Momo is often mistaken for a ganguro due to her tanned skin and bleached hair. She gets teased a lot about it, but her looks are actually the result of her being a member of the school's swim team—her skin is tanned because she spends a lot of time swimming outdoors, and the chlorine and other pool chemicals bleached her hair strawberry-blonde.
- Please Tell Me! Galko-chan: The series and by extension, Galko herself, are named after this trope. She wears heavy makeup, paints her nails, styles her hair and dyes it blonde. However, she's a downplayed example because despite her name and appearance, she has zero experience with men, and gets easily embarrassed over her physique and what she says, as she sometimes accidentally says suggestive stuff.
- Pokémon: The Original Series: The episode "Battle Aboard the St. Anne" has Jessie and James dressed as ganguro. The English dub translates this by making them into Valley Girls.
- Re-Kan!: The aptly named "Kogal Ghost" is obsessed with 80's fashion, though her hair appears to be naturally dark.
- Serial Experiments Lain: The show's R-Rated Opening starts with a ganguro making out with a man before they both notice a girl jump off of a roof.
- Short Cuts: There's an entire kogal village, even filled with grannies wearing loose socks.
- Sgt. Frog: Angol Mois has a fairly subdued kogal appearance in her human form. She's already Ambiguously Brown, but has platinum blonde hair instead of her natural silver hair when she chooses to stay on Earth. She wears a simple brown and white school uniform, skirt, and loose socks. She deliberately chose the style after being influenced by a delinquent girl she met, but it definitely adds to her character design's cuteness.
- Skip Beat!: Kyoko pretends to be a kogal by using distinctive slang and an airheaded persona so that Sho doesn't figure out that it is her.
- Space Patrol Luluco: Midori Save-The-World is a gyaru stereotype, mostly in being a Phoneaholic Teenager. It's a plot point because her phone has an illegal black hole app that lets her steal stuff. Appearance-wise, she has multicolor gradient hair but green rather than dark skin, because she's half-alien.
- Talentless Nana: two examples in Kirara Habu and Kaori Takanashi. The two of them are good friends, are obsessed with fashion and looking like Westerners (Kirara has tanned skin and blonde hair, Kaori wears blue color contacts), and are almost never seen without their phones.
- There's a Ghost Behind That Gal: The titular gal Yuina rocks the usual kogal fashion of tanned skin, dyed-blonde hair, and mini-skirts.
- Train to the End of the World: Reimi appears to be at least partially inspirted by this trend, having tanned skin, dyed-blonde hair, loose socks, and a bright hair accessory. However, the tan is actually her natural skin tone so she may not be fully pursuing this style.
- Yancha Gal no Anjou-san stars the gyaru Anna Anjo.
Art
- Gal And Mandala: The art exhibition is Gyaru-themed, featuring many different gals in various sub-styles of Gyaru fashion.
Comic Books
- Ultimate X-Men (2024): Mei "Maystorm" Igarashi is a kogal, with her wearing a white school uniform top, a leather skirt with plaid underneath it and chains, a vest with badges, loose socks, droopy earrings, boots, and a half-shaven undercut. She also has white hair, but it's from her powers instead of being dyed.
Fan Works
- Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!: Mina Ashido shows Class 1-A a photo of herself before suffering her mutation, and she looks a lot like one, having dark skin, brown hair and no horns. Mineta and Kaminari even call her "a real 'gyaru'".
- VIMALION PROJECT: Eri is explicitly identified as a gyaru, and her design hits a lot of the typical aspects associated with the style.
Films — Animated
- Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo: When Beast Boy enters a karaoke parlor while chasing a Japanese schoolgirl in downtown Tokyo, a ganguro girl can be seen among the girls fawning over BB as he's forced to sing the series' opening theme.
Literature
- Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway: Asami Yuuki shows some Gyaru traits, like tanned skin, blonde hair and calling Sayu "Sayu-chaso".note
- Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!: Yumeko Shikiya's fashion sense has several hallmarks of the kogal subculture, with her long blonde hair, unbuttoned shirt, sweater tied around her waist, and scrunchie on her wrist. However, she doesn't have the typical personality of a kogal, being very listless and stoic (to the point that she almost acts like a zombie most of the time) instead of cheerful and outgoing.
Live-Action TV
- Kamen Rider Gavv: Main character Sachika Amane is described as one. She is an independent, proactive entrepreneur who even hires and provides shelter to two fellow (male) main characters when they have no home to return to.
- No.1 Sentai Gozyuger: The show has an episode dedicated to them. In the series, Monsters of the Week proclaim themselves to be ‘number 1’ at their specific skill/job/personality trait field of expertise, with that episode’s antagonist being Gyaru No. 1. It also coincides with the appearance of a main character’s relative, who is also a gyaru girl, a stark contrast to how she is portrayed in flashbacks to her childhood and how said main character remembers her.
- Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger: An episode appropriately titled "Gal Hazard", with the "Gal" pronounced as "Gyaru". The protagonists have to deal with a small-time alien shoplifter named Faraway who definitely looks the part. She isn't particularly bright or cooperative, and both Ban and Houji consider her pretty hard on the eyes.
Music
- egg All Stars, LOALO MODELS are musical groups formed by models from their respective magazines, egg and LOALO, to advertise them after the gyaru communities in Japan and overseas sparked a revival for the subculture.
- Even the models from the magazine nutsnote joined in on releasing music videos such as "MAKE UP UR MIND" and "Heccha Lucky!!" to advertise it.
- Even the models from the magazine nutsnote joined in on releasing music videos such as "MAKE UP UR MIND
- "Ganguro" by Franz Tornado is an Eurobeat song about the ganguro/yamanba subculture.
- PiNKII's "Hot Gal Summer" not only is about gyaru girls at the beach in summer, but is also chock-full of references to the gyaru subculture.
- Buchiage♂Trance/Buchiage♂Parance, Gazen Parapara, and Campus Summit are series of music albums marketed to the gyaru subculture, with Gal-Cir Trance's cover◊ features illustrated ganguro faces on the foil which once removed, reveal the album's full name on the sleeve◊ in gyaru-moji.
- The late comedian/impressionist/coreographer "Maeken" Ken Maeda has also joined in on the fashion in his music projects.
- The musical video for "Koi no Buchiage♂Tengoku: Koi no Maiahi~Chihuahua~Banzai", a parapara medley cover of "Dragostea din tei", "Chihuahua", and "Banzai", takes place at a classroom full of kogals, with the main one being played by Maeda.
- Maeken♂Trance Project was a solo project by Maeda. The albums released so far also have songs featured in Buchiage, the inspiration for the project. Moreover, the song/album covers for said project features Maeda in drag and/or with a fake tan to evoke a gyaru.
- The musical video for "Koi no Buchiage♂Tengoku: Koi no Maiahi~Chihuahua~Banzai
- POLICEMAN's single and memetic music video "Galo Sengen" is about the gyaru-oh lifestyle.
Video Games
- Arknights: Utage comes from Higashi, the Fantasy Counterpart Culture version of Japan in Terra, and loves fashion. As part of her style, she keeps her nails long and painted in her base outfit, while one of her skins has her dressed in a modified school uniform. She also keeps up with the latest fashion trend and helps other operators to be fashionable.
- Blue Archive: Kirara. Between her long nails, exposed cleavage, and general personality, she stands out amongst the mostly utilitarian population of Gehenna Academy through this trope alone.
- Fate/Grand Order: Suzuka Gozen, who is also the rival Saber from the Fate/EXTRA CCC Fox Tail manga, carries herself like a Gyaru, even calling herself a "JK Saber" (JK = joshikousei = high-school girl).
- HuniePop: Sarah "Suki" Stevens from HunieCam Studio is a Japan-obsessed otaku who emulates the Manba style, complete with dark tan, contrasting make-up, glittery adhesives beneath her eyes and Hawaiian leis.
- THE iDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls:
- Mika Jougasaki is very much into kogal fashion, and so is her younger sister Rika. In the second half of the anime, her production company forces her to stop wearing gal clothing and makes her wear more mature outfits, but she eventually manages to make the new look her own. Izumi Mei is another one, but from the THE iDOLM@STER: Shiny Colors series instead.
- Rina Fujimoto is the ganguro type, though she wears much less makeup when she's performing. She and Mika make up two-thirds of the unit Sexy Gals along with Yui Ohtsuki (who didn't start out as this, but leaned into a kogal type as time went on).
- I=MGCM: Riri/Lilly Yarimizu, one of Magical Girl Warrior heroines, follows the Ganguro fashion by having pastel-pink hair and wears it in a massive drill-like side-tail, tanned skin, and a cleavage-exposed school uniform. Surprisingly, she's actually a nice and wholesome girl who doesn't like bad men, due to the fact that her father was a cheater and a wastrel who ran away with other women right after Riri's mother became pregnant.
- Insanity: Riho Tanaka is described as such. She has a Valley Girl-esque way of speaking, blonde hair (possibly dyed) and is very interested in boys, fashion and decorating. She constantly wears a school uniform, although in this case it's because she's a high school student.
- Mega Man Zero 4: The boss Sol Titanion of the Einherjar Eight Warriors is depicted as an extremely exaggerated gyaru, so much that whenever she uses her Red Flame Fans attack she shouts "Mitai na!" (みたいなー, Like, totally!) "Mitai na" is a slangy phrase that was heavily used by Japanese gyaru girls during the 1990s. It was used at the end of a sentence to add a mood of "kinda", "maybe" or "something like that", or even meaningless filler. Titanion uses it as if it's an independent interjection since she is an exagerated gyaru, but normally one cannot start a sentence with みたいな or use みたいな as a meaningless filler.
- Persona:
- Persona 1: Yuka Ayase is a kogal girl, dying her hair blonde and wearing short skirts with loose socks. In the English translation, she speaks in a Valley Girl dialect.
- Persona 3: Natsuki Moriyama is a ganguro gal, having tanned skin and strawberry blonde hair.
- Persona 5: The Phantom X: Kayo Tohyama is a 44-year old housewife who is a former fashionista. During her youth, she was a ganguro gal◊, having bleached blonde hair, tanned skin, and loud sense of fashion. As the Phantom Idol Okyann, she re-adopts this look◊. There is quite the gap between her real self and cognitive self.
- Pokémon:
- Pokémon Sun and Moon: Plumeria, the second-in-command of Team Skull, has pink and yellow hair, and accents her eyes with white makeup. Her design is clearly inspired from ganguro style, further exemplified by the baggy clothing fashion that the entire organization wears.
- Pokémon Red and Blue: Jynx had been theorized to be based on ganguro fashion due to its dark skin, pink lips, and platinum blonde hair. Others say she's based on the tale of Yama-Uba, who are depicted in Noh plays by actors in Black Face (though orange masks are more traditional) and a pale wig along with a tattered red kimono. Or Jynx could be based on both, as there is a subset of ganguro fashion based on Yama-Uba called "Yamanba".
- Pokémon Black and White: Simipour is partly designed after kogal fashion, to match the Japanese Delinquents theme it has going on with Simisage and Simisear (who are based on yankiis and Bōsōzoku, respectively). Like them, however, it also has a far higher chance of being male than it does female.
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: Ogerpon, introduced in The Teal Mask DLC, appears to draw inspiration from the Yamanba and Manba styles, most evident in her orange face, starry eyes, and the -Pon suffix in her name and dialogue. This is fitting, since Ogerpon is based on an Oni, and Yamanba draws from the Yama-uba Yōkai
- Senran Kagura: Shiki is the Kogal variety. A shinobi who is also a casual girl who chats with her cellphone (even in battle), comments about trends and fashion, and speaks like a stereotypical Valley Girl. But, unlike most examples, she's also very knowledgeable and IT-savvy, and uses this knowledge to help her friends in battle.
- Sonic the Hedgehog: Amy Rose's modern design is invoking of the Kogal style - while her pink quills are standard, her styling her hair into a bob and adding in a hairband is new. She also trades out the green blouse, orange skirt and tennis shoes for a halter top dress with a short skirt, platform boots and curled up socks and adds in bracelets to her gloves.
- Umamusume: Pretty Derby: Gold City, Tosen Jordan, Mejiro Palmer, Daitaku Helios, Espoir City and Forever Young form a gang that represent different gyaru types.
- Yandere Simulator: The bully clique (Musume Ronshaku, Kokoro Momoiro, Kashiko Murasaki, Hoshiko Mizudori, and Hana Daidaiyama) is a mix of these styles (though mostly Kogal and Ganguro). They are all dark-skinned blondes with their hair dyed flashy colors, they wear insanely short skirts and loose socks, and they accessorize with scrunchies on their wrists, hair decorations, makeup, and cardigans around their waists. Word of God is that Musume started wearing Gyaru fashion to stand out, but ended up making it a trend. She wound up befriending the girls who took to her style the most because they had similar interests (mostly bullying), and the youngest member, Hoshiko, came to school after the clique was established and started dressing like that to integrate herself.
Visual Novels
- Crescendo (JP): Yuka's design strongly evokes the gyaru. While she's not tanned, her hair is lighter than the rest of the cast (probably bleached) and she also uses the dangerously short skirt, cleavage-showing shirt and loose socks worn by the average school-aged gyarus.
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: Junko Enoshima, a rare villainous example as she is the Big Bad of the series, is known as the "Super High School Level Gyaru", localized as "Ultimate Fashionista" in the English translation. Being a Kogal, she wears a modified school uniform with a short skirt, long platform boots, and based on how she appears in Danganronpa Zero as Ryoko Otonashi, it's implied that her hair is dyed. Concept art shows that Junko would have sported a ganguro styled appearance instead.
Webcomics
- Centurii-chan: Gyaru Landsknecht lives up to her title as she's a female landsknecht with dyed blond hair ending in pink tips, tanned skin, and make up. Her normal attire is a pink puffy jacket over a breastplate emblazoned with stickers and denim shorts, and a pink hat with a small teddy bear on it. Even her zweihander has also keychain charms to emphasize her gyaru appearance. Furthermore, a subsequent comic depicts her buying gauntlets with long claws (a reference to gyaru having long nails) and a leopard-print macuahuitl with a Crewmate emblazoned on it.
@CenturiiC: If you think about it.
Landsknechts are just medieval gyarus. - See You Tomorrow at the Food Court: Yamamoto looks like the stereotypical ganguro gyaru, with her bleached blonde hair, tanned skin, fashionable looks, voluptuous chest, and affinity with American culture. But she doesn't act like one in the slightest, being a mature, down-to-earth girl who's very aloof, quiet, studious, and doesn't like standing out.
Web Animation
- ATTACK on MIKA:
- “Stop staring, creep!” The introvert is surrounded by annoying gals... “You’re ugly.” features a posse of delinquent gals seated around an introverted boy named Takumi. They all, except their leader Natsumi, are nice to him.
- My life was ruined as a child... I met a flashy gal in high school “Remember me?”: Daiki's childhood friend Yuri became one after years of not seeing each other again. However, her new personality led her to force him into social activities. When Daiki asks her why she changed, she reminded him that he made her promise to be more outgoing when they were kids.
- Here's what happened when the smartest kid pretended to be an outcast...: Natsuna Takagi is a gyaru who likes to tease protagonist Satori Sugino for being a nerd. After he saved her from a pair of thugs in his delinquent persona, she fell in love with him, unaware that the hardened delinquent and the nerd she teased are both Sugino.
- I reunited with the girl who used to treat me like crap in high school...: Mizuki is a flashy gyaru who liked to tease and use Asuka as her errand boy. Turns out she did this because he found her lost earrings and since then she fell for him.
- The introvert is harassed by self-conscious girls stars Lilina, Konomi, and Aira as gals who chatter among themselves while seating around an introverted Ichi, who helps the three of them study after he called them out for her flashiness.
- “Stop staring, creep!” The introvert is surrounded by annoying gals... “You’re ugly.”
- Ayasaki-san: Sana is a gyaru and also one of the most popular girls in Chiaki's school along with Miyu.
- Etra chan saw it!: Tachibana is a gyaru-oh, he even maintains his look when he appears as a young boy or an old man.
- Grim Reaper Flag-chan!: This episode centers on Mobuo trying to woo one of these, based on the mangas where a gyaru is nice to an otaku. However, she rejects him for being a creep, which summons Heartbreak Flag-chan. She tries to become a gyaru to get Mobuo's affection, even becoming a yamanba by Romance Flag-chan's advice.
- Mameshiba: Fava Bean's short features two ganguro girls. Unlike other chapters, the girl told the trivia is amazed at it (eels are dark because they tan too much).
- Manga Heaven: Kurumi dressed up like a gyaru after finding a package for Koi-meno and thought Naoto liked gyarus since the girl on the package is one. However, Naoto explained that his brother Ken is the one into gyarus. Kurumi decided to keep the gyaru look since she enjoyed dressing up like one.
- Manga Room: Tomoka is a gyaru who likes to pick on Yusaku, much to his annoyance. When he couldn't take her teasing anymore, he lies to her about being engaged, hoping to gross her out and get her off his back. Much to his surprise, it hurt her feelings. When Yusaku asked her about it, Tomoka confessed she did this because she actually liked him.
- Nijisanji: Kotoka Torahime of EN’s seventh wave was the gyaru vice president of the XSOLEIL Institute of Infinity who had a raunchy sense of humor and the power to change her "glamour" into that of another person by touching them then taking a selfie with them with the flash on.
- Paranormal High School: Two of the main characters of the series, Mirai Misato and Shoko Taira, self-identify as gals and have a ton of other minor gal friends as well, casually talking about fashion, taking selfies and other typical gal things, when they aren't saying something amazing.
- Refreshing Stories: Motoko and her friends from the episode She dumped me back in high school, but now she was trying to get back with me dressed like kogals back in high school, complete with fake tans. However, she dropped the style altogether when she returned to harass Hiroshi (who became a doctor) years after dumping him for a delinquent guy.
- RomCom Manga Chan: The episode Hot Popular Girl In Class Lost A Video Game Against Me And Now She Obeys Me features Mary Toyota as a gyaru who likes video games and came to Kent's house to have a match with him at a game. She lost but fell in love with him.
- SparkTales:
- "Husband Demanded Perfection While Cheating—My Imitation of His Lover Was Priceless" (JP version): After finding out Morao/Mogi has been cheating on Lisa/Ai with a gal-type girl, she and Madison/Aoi adopt gal fashion and speak in Valley Girl slang to imitate his lover. This is evident in the JP version, where Morao namedrops the word "gyaru" upon seeing Ai and Aoi in flashy attires and speaking like gyaru girls. Moreover, Takuya also joins in on speaking like this when showing up to inform the cheating husband of the compensation he has to pay.
- "I ate 10 plates of sushi, then they charged me $400—while the table next to me paid $50" (JP version): Charao is a rare male example as he has dyed-blond hair, speaking in slang. The three young women who ate at the same sushi restaurant as Lisa and Noah also count given they speak like Valley Girls and the Japanese version even refers to them as gyaru girls as they speak like the real thing.
- "Husband Demanded Perfection While Cheating—My Imitation of His Lover Was Priceless"
Web Original
- Fragaria Memories: Sanah, the knight of U*SA*HA*NA, is a Gender-Inverted example. He has the tanned skin and blond hair typically associated with the gyaru(o) subculture as a whole while also having long painted fingernails, body decals not unlike the ones worn in the Manba substyle, and a coat that bears a striking resemblance to the iconic Alba Rosa hibiscus coats◊ that were popular in the subculture from the late 90s to the Turn of the Millennium.
