If you go to Japan or have Japanese friends you’re bound to run into a purikura photo or photo booth. Purikura stands for purinto kurabu (プリント倶楽部), or print club. These photo booths were introduced in 1995 and by 1997 over 45,000 booths existed around the country (Okabe, Daisuke et al., pg. 1). It is popular with girls from the ages or 15 to 20. Virtually every Japanese high school girl take purikura photos and purikura is used as a way to visually display friendships and social networks to other (Okabe, Daisuke et al., pg. 2). Purikura are large photo booths that can hold anywhere from 4 to 8 people and offer a variety of background options for the users. After the photo has been taken, the girls can then go to a modification screen and write various kinds of ‘graffiti’ on their photos. They can also add image modifications to the photos, like makeup, different hairstyles, etc. The finished photos are printed out on sheets of self-adhesive stickers. Girls collect their purikura in photo albums as a sort of diary and carry the extra photos in a small container they call ‘puri-cans.’ High school girls look at their purikura albums with each other all the time, during lunchtime, after school, even in class. My students have given me purikura photos of themselves and their friends. Girls also exchange purikura photos with their friends. While some girls bring their boyfriends into purikura booths with them occasionally, the activity is mainly for girls (a Japanese boy would not own a purikura album).

At first glance, this seems to be just another example of Japanese companies making money off of young girls and their obsession with ‘cuteness.’ Most purikura photos are garishly girly and show the girls and their friends in various ‘cute’ poses. However, recently purikura photos have split into many different types. Surprisingly, girls often aren’t cute in their photos – they make ugly faces and draw thick eyebrows, glasses, or spots on their faces. Most girls say that they wouldn’t want to shoe their purikura albums to their boyfriends because they make funny faces or have distorted their faces with graffiti (Okabe, Daisuke et al., pg. 3). Most surprisingly, girls are often making sexual poses with their friends, exposing their underwear or their bodies and writing vulgar comments on their pictures. Most popular girls’ fashion magazines feature a section of purikura photos submitted by their female readers and many example of these graphic purikura can be found. Magazines also often have ‘purikome’ (プリコメ or purikura commentary) where other girls analyze the content and success of the photos.

Thus, there are several different types of purikura and various purikura booths have specific themes:

• Okinipuri (オキニプリ‘Thanks print club’) – a way to make purikura photos for your friends to give them as a thank you.
• Rabupuri (ラブプリ ‘Love print club’) – geared towards couples who want to make purikura together on dates.
• Yabapuri (ヤバプリ ‘Repulsive print club’) – This comes from the Japanese word ‘yabai’ (やばい) which can mean ‘dangerous/risky,’ ‘terrible/crap,’ or ‘amazing/cool’ depending on the context in which it is used. This word is very popular with high school girls. This is one of the more vulgar types of purikura.
• Kimopuri (キモプリ ‘Print club that gives you the creeps’) This comes from the Japanese word ‘kimoi’ (きもい) which means ‘gross/disgusting’ and is also extremely popular among high school girls.
• Aho mōdo (アホモオド ‘Dumb ass mode’) – a pretty self-explanatory version.
• Hōra mōdo (ホオラプリ ‘Horror mode’ or ‘Horror print club’) a specific theme where girls can modify the pictures so that it looks like they are oozes various substances or blood, etc.
• Kosupuri (コスプリ ‘Cosplay/Costume print club’) not to be confused with cosplay, these photo booths offer various costumes that girls can change into for their pictures. You can see these types in game centers all around Akihabara.
• Eropuri (エロプリ ‘Erotic print club’) Eropuri are photos taken in machines that allow for full body shots and involve the subject exposing some or all of their body for a photo.

Purikura is a trend that started and spread between young girls, there was very little media or celebrity influence (especially with versions like eropuri). Chisako Wada, editor of PopTeen, a very popular girl fashion magazine, published a feature on eropuri in the magazine. She said, “Our feature on eropuri taught us that girls’ reactions varied, ranging from shame and disgust to awe, but one thing that was undeniable was how the trend was spreading through the ranks in a way that only girls of that age are capable of carrying out…Today’s teen-age girls are pretty light-hearted. They show their eropuri amongst each other and have absolutely no qualms about showing off their naked bodies. Showing eropuri is one way girls use to prove they’re a friend.”(Connell, Ryann. “Bold Teen Babes Flash Full Bodyflesh for the Porn Print Pic.”)

On one hand, this is another example of girls making cute little pictures of them being adorably cute, or of them adopting some sort of photo model persona to show off their bodies in a purikura. On the other hand, purikuri provides a safe place for girls to work out their feelings towards gender socialization and the media’s sexualization of girls and women (Miller, Laura. “Bad Girl Photography”). I believe that websites like Myspace serve a similar function to girls in the USA. By toying with the ideas of being a sexy bad girl like a kyaba-ko (cabaret girl, キャバ子) or by defacing their own images by being excessively vulgar or sexy in purikura photos, girls can flirt with the idea of breaking away from the stereotypical image of the cute Japanese ‘good girl.’ Truthfully, most girls will never break away from this mold. But the popularity of purikura and the increasing popularity of cabaret girls (glamorized in magazines like Koakuma AGEHA and TV dramas like Jyouou 嬢王 TV Tokyo 2005 (about hostesses) and the large amount of girls who list kyaba-ko as their dream job alongside flight attendant) demonstrate that these girls may push the boundaries between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ girl behavior to deal with the pressure that society puts on them to assimilate. Purikura is a relatively safe way to flirt with sexuality and the boundaries of what is socially acceptable without going over the line. It is also created and consumed by girls with their girl friends, which simultaneously makes it a private activity with the group and increases the social bond between them. By inserting their private ugly or sexy personae into the semi-public sphere of photo booths and girl magazines, girls are defying – at least temporarily – the cultural rule that women should display restraint, cuteness, and modesty in public.

For a more feminist and detailed interpretation of purikura, please read “Bad Girl Photography” by Laura Miller in Bad Girls of Japan. Buy it here.

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Works Cited

Connell, Ryann. “Bold Teen Babes Flash Full Bodyflesh for the Porn Print Pic.” Mainichi Daily News, Interactive, August 27, 2003.

Miller, Laura. “Bad Girl Photography,” Bad Girls of Japan. Ed. Laura Miller and Jan Bardsley, Palgrave Macmillan, New York: New York, 2005.

Okabe, Daisuke et al. “The Social Uses of Purikura: Photographing, Modding, Archiving, and Sharing.” PICS Workshop, Ubicomp 2006, pg. 1.

Tags: critical essay, Japanese culture

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