PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT are known collectively as kokujin (black-people). The Japanese who worked their faces into this Zulu zone of crypto-negritude were known as ganguro (female), or gyaruo (male) “black faces.” This ephemeral fad was an offshoot of American gangsta pop culture.

Though occasionally exploited in advertising, ganguro culture was as underground as it ever got in Japan. To make your face different (remember, “saving face”), would make you a nail stuck up so high it could never be pounded down. It was a desperate cry for individuality (in a conformist sort of way). Asking a ganguro why her face was black would be like asking a Valley Girl why she talks funny. Beatniks, punks and other avant-gardists might express their individuality in the form of music, art, or a literary style, but the black-faces weren’t around long enough for that to happen. They were as superficial as the make-up they wore.

As close as any of this came to self reflection was on a Tokyo TV show, where a group of ganguro women were instructed to have an argument with so-called obatalian women, known for their aggressive attitude. The ganguro won.

The style occurred in various forms up and down the social hierarchy. For women, there was the high fashion ganguro, often wearing atsuzoko buutsu, the absurdly high, elevated platform shoes and boots that sent untold numbers of them tumbling into orthopedic wards. Male gyaruo were often street types, hip hop wannabes or outright pimps in Tokyo’s sex districts.