stumbled on a totally ridiculous (and utterly fabulous) dance competition in front of the shibuya 109 building this afternoon. called the eurobeat 10 competition, it featured lots of ganguro-esque girls doing this really ...erm.... lame synchronised dance to mickey mouse disco.

here's the gallery and here's the video - i've never tried to upload video before and it's kinda just a crappy fast pan on my camera so don't expect anything too flash.... i will only keep this video file online for a week or so, it's too big to keep.

[UPDATE: THE VERY LOVELY TOAN KINDLY RESIZED AND COMPRESSED THE VIDEO TO A MUCH MORE MANAGEABLE 1 MG .MOV FILE, SO IT CAN STAY ON THE SITE NOW: THANK YOU TOAN!]

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i did some quick research - here's what i found:

1. The GANGURO "look" is to have dyed blonde or brown hair, plucked eyebrows, tanned skin, mini-skirt, cool shoes, "ganguro gal" are the brownskin girls, "gonguro gal" are the more deep brownskin, "Yamanba gal" is silver or white or brown hair, brown or hard-drawn face, heavy makeup or panda makeup. "Yamanba gal" include "Ganguro gal" and "Gonguro gal"

2. Ganguro, literally "face-black," is a fashion trend among Japanese girls, an outgrowth of chapatsu hair dyeing. The basic look is bleached-blond hair and a deep tan, produced by tanning beds or makeup. The intent is to produce the tanned, blond California beach girl look or a black woman. Accessories include high platform shoes or boots, purikura photo stickers, and cellular phones. The Shibuya and Ikebukuro districts of Tokyo are the center of ganguro fashion. It goes against the grain of the usual Japanese standard of female beauty, which calls for skin as white as possible. The roots of the trend are said to be in the mid-1990s, starting with a popular tanned Okinawan singer named Amuro Namie and black British fashion model Naomi Campbell.

3. Ganguro taken to the next level is called yamanba. Yamanba, sometimes written as "yamamba", is a term that comes from mythology and refers to a mountain-ogress (also known as Yama-uba Yama-uba ("mountain crone") found in Japanese folklore. The name may also be spelled "Yamamba" or "Yamanba". She is sometimes confused with the Yuki-onna ("snow woman"), but the two figures are not the same. Appearance: Yama-uba looks like an old woman, usually a hideous one. Her unkempt hair is long and white, and her kimono is filthy and tattered. Her mouth is sometimes said to stretch the entire width of her face, and some depictions give her a second mouth at the top of her head. She is able to change her appearance, though, and she uses this tactic to great success in capturing her victims. The yamanba adds white lipstick and eye makeup and sometimes blue contacts. The result is a caricature of a blond Caucasian woman.