Coming of age ceremony in Japan today. Gyaru wear Kimono like Oiran (courtesan).

“The coming of age ceremony in Japan is getting naughty in the past couple of years”, Japanese news say.

Before talking the topic, Let me introduce the coming of age ceremony in Japan (成人式 seijinshiki lit., growing human ceremony). It has started in Nara Period (710-794) used to be called “Genpuku” as a ceremony or an event of turning childhood to adulthood. The idea was brought to Japan from Confusian tradition. Men had “Genpuku” (age 14-15) and women had “Mogi” until “Edo period”. The today’s style of “Coming of age ceremony” started after the world war II to encourage young generations from scars of the war.

The age is 20 years old, and they acquire new legal rights, such as the voting, smoking cigaret, and drinking alcohol.

The ceremony is generally on the Second Sunday of January as a national holiday (Shukujitsu 祝日 also known as Hatabi 旗日 a flag day). It is held at the local city halls usually, but some cities hold the ceremony at theme parks such as Disney land, Wow.

The current survey says that “the coming of age ceremony” is seen as “school reunion” mostly among the new coming of age people. Well, this is true, it is kind of school reunion because almost everyone goes to their local ceremony, some of them there are chance to meet friends have not seen since the middle school. (about 5 years). With the drinking permission, the ceremony gets rough and chaotic sometimes. In some places, there are arrests during the ceremony. The picture below left is a gang members all wear same style of “Hakama” and right is one got arrested.

Since the ceremony is historical and supposedly very formal and traditional, men wear “Hakama” (Japanese formal uniform) or “suits”, and Women wear “Kimono/Furisode” usually. In modern days, wearing “Hakama” or “Kimono” is very rare, for many of us, only wear “Hakama” for only this day, girls might wear “Kimono” more often, at graduation and someones’ wedding party, but not very often. These uniforms are very expensive too, it costs usually more than $2000.

These are the traditional uniforms.

There are varieties of “Hakama” for mens. Leopard Hakama, nice!!

However, being fashionable gets extreme today. Among a group of certain fashion type girls called “Gryaru“, wearing Kimono like a “Oiran”(courtesan in 17th century) was in fashion for the coming of age ceremony. This tradition gave rise to public censure last few weeks.

IMPORTANT: Geisha and Oiran are different!!! Don’t get mixed up from the movie “Memory of a Geisha”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geisha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oiran