There's no escaping.

[nenena]

Color advertisement on the back cover of last week's Shounen Magazine:


Clicky thumbnail!

For those of you who can't read Japanese: YES, that is exactly what it looks like.

It jumped right out at me, mostly because to my gaijin eyes it is a freakishly weird thing to be hawking in weekly comics anthology marketed at teen boys. I mean, I know that you can find hair removal products for men in any country, but they're almost never advertised in the United States, and especially would never be advertised in a comic book. Or in any publication marketed toward teen boys, I would hope. It's bad enough that teen girls have that crap shoved constantly down their throats. Sigh.

I guess there's just no escaping restrictive beauty standards, no matter what your gender or what country you call home. I mean, I've got nothing against hair removal - I do it myself on occasion - but I wish, I really wish, that the beauty industry would stop presenting it as a choice between being hairy-therefore-ugly versus hairless-therefore-beautiful. Ugh.

Comments

[orthoflame.livejournal.com]

Heh, that makes me think of India's fairness creme advertisements, though this looks a lot more crazier. And the ads probably wouldn't make it into something like Shounen Magazine (but don't take my word for it, I'm not 100% certain).

If you ask me, not shaving is easier and cheaper than removing body hair. :\ More comfortable too. Guess I'm in a minority.

[nenena.livejournal.com]

See, that's what surprised me about this. I'm used to "hairlessness" being presented as a feminine beauty standard, but this is the first time that I've seen it presented as explicitly masculine/sporty. I'd be equally as surprised if I saw skin-lightening creams marketed to teen boys, because I've only ever seen them marketed toward women before.

[orthoflame.livejournal.com]

Oh crud, I meant cream, not creme (in my first comment). Bad typo, I know.

I can't find the exact link at the moment, but there's a men's version of the popular fairness cream Fair & Lovely. This link has a few products targeted for men. The Fair & Handsome commercials tend to show a man's darkness less of a stigma than a female's darker complexion (the father-daughter one makes me gag). Plus the message seemed to be 'This could get you chicks!' instead of 'YOU WILL DIE A JOBLESS SPINSTA WITHOUT OUR FAIRNESS CREAM!!1' So yeah, more pressure gets put on women there.

Yeah, I find the hairlessness rage with males to contradict the common belief of females having no facial/body hair. On one hand, this could mean hairlessness will become a social pressure to both genders. On the other hand, well, this is not exactly the best place to instill equality (if you can call it that, of course).

Goodness, this comment ended up being longer than I thought...

[nenena.livejournal.com]

This link has a few products targeted for men.

Iiiiiiiiinteresting. Thanks for the link! I'm definitely getting a lot of my assumptions about beauty standards challenged today. ;)

[atelierjoh.livejournal.com]

lol, I remember seeing a similar ad from a Shonen Jump issue I bought a couple of years ago when I was at a Japanese airport. Next thing you know, plucking your eyebrows and putting on charcoal eyebrows will become a big thing once again.

[veraliana.livejournal.com]

Yes, lol! Now boys will have to suffer the pressure society puts on us to shave! Muwhahahaha! Just kidding. I love the sparkles, though. They make it seem magical 8D

While I do find smooth hairlessness attractive--in both men and women--I don't think society should be telling us (women) that if you're not hairless, you're disgusting, which it kind of does. And if that attitude begins to affect men, all the worse. Like I said before, personally I find hairlessness attractive but if you don't wanna shave, that's your deal and there's nothing wrong with it. We shouldn't be looked down upon if we've got hairy legs in our swimsuits, dammit! ...But keep the bikini area clean please >_>;;

So umm... Do you find this kind of thing normally in Japan...?

[nenena.livejournal.com]

While I do find smooth hairlessness attractive--in both men and women--I don't think society should be telling us (women) that if you're not hairless, you're disgusting, which it kind of does.

That's it exactly. It's the difference between beauty practices versus beauty standards. I don't care what any one individual person chooses to do in order to make him/herself beautiful. BUT I can't stand advertising that enforces the idea that "if you don't [blahblahblah] then you won't be popular/won't get a boyfriend/won't get hired for a good job," or whatever.

So umm... Do you find this kind of thing normally in Japan...?

Believe it or not, Japan is not any more or less weird than any other country. ;) But since I'm from a different culture there are a lot of things that seem "weird" to me. Including things like advertisements and fashion.