Japanese Influence

GlobeGazette.com: Transported half a world away via a digital connection, best friends Emily Coovert and Simone Boissonneault drift into their own head-bobbing universe of sound as they watch a Japanese stadium show, a furious mix of hard guitar licks, operatic Queen-like vocals, the occasional classical flourish and bouncy beats. It is one of, give or take, 500 J-rock — or Japanese pop — songs they’ve burned onto CDs.
It’s not the kind of stuff you’ll hear on MTV.
The music twangs out of a computer vibrating with the shrieking screams of teen girls and the vision of skinny, androgynous Japanese men prancing across a stage, howling into microphones like David Bowie in his heyday.
But the Lexington, Ky., teens are into more than just music. Emily’s hard drive is crammed with 800 to 1,000 pictures of their favorite Japanese fashions and singers. Her closet, and floor, are carpeted with brightly colored scarfs, shirts and printed skirts that, when assembled, are all the necessities for creating a kind of Japanese street fashion favored by a group known as “fruits.”
“The Idiot’s Guide to Buddhism” is on a shelf, next to a dozen or so Japanese graphic novels known as manga. “Memoirs of a Geisha” is in a tangle of covers on the bed, and on the back of Emily’s door is information about the foreign language and international economics program at the University of Kentucky.
Other teens might swoon over rocker John Mayer, but these girls are gaga for guys named Mana and Gackt.
Emily, 17, and Simone, 16, are part of a growing, Internet-influenced trend that has American teens coveting Japanese culture.
American teens latch on to Japanese pop culture [GlobeGazette.com]