#muko

LQD: S2.06

This was so funny!! I wanna see them mooorrreee~!!

Dave and Bambi reminisce on the day they first met.

dandadantheworld!!!

Another Redraw from the manga!

Now you're probably thinking "well obviously Muko is, look at her, but the other two just look normal"

That's because Muko is what we would call a manba/yamanba gyaru. She tans really dark or she is just naturally dark, idk yet you can never tell with these characters. Besides the tan, their makeup tends to be more extreme, which is why hers stands out so much more compared to Momo or Miko.

Her accessories are also very colorful, which gives us some hints about her style outside of school. In keeping with manba fashion and just gyaru fashion in general, it's probably loud and super patterned.

The second thing we have to understand here is that they're all kogals.

"But wait, I thought you just said she was a manba?"

Kogal is technically not a style. I say technically because it's a little complicated. Kogal, generally speaking, is a term meant to encompass gals currently in school. The reason you may look this up and see a lot of uniforms isn't because that's what the "style" requires, but because these are often school-aged girls who don't have the choice to wear anything else on a regular basis. However, that in itself kind of became a style? In the sense that they would change the way they wore their uniforms and what they wore them with to align with gyaru styles outside of school. So while kogal is not a style by definition, there is a style by nature of that definition. Ykwim? If that doesn't make sense, I'm sorry. Just know for our intents and purposes we're gonna talk about kogal as a label and not a sub style.

Anyway, back to this. So all of them are kogals, which means a few things. One, their fashion in school is somewhat limited, and so are their hair and makeup choices. Some schools are stricter about this than others, some parents contribute to that strictness or add some that wasn't already there. As far as the school in Dandadan goes, it seems like they don't care too much about that kind of thing.

Not to mention, school is a lot of work! It gets busy, and gyaru makeup takes a long time. (I would know, I'm a gyaru). And if you're also fighting aliens who wanna steal your uterus and demons who just... do demon shit, chances are you aren't going to have the energy to be doing that every morning. Not even Muko, the most extreme of the two, does her makeup all the time

So the lack of makeup, even though it's usually a good identifier doesn't mean Miko and Momo aren't gyarus still.

Also, look at their clothes compared to real life kogals.

This is no coincidence. This is undeniably kogal.

Also notice that in these pictures, these gals are wearing gyaru makeup, but it's not as in your face as what I showed earlier. That could also be the case with Momo and Miko.

From my understanding I don't think they're wearing makeup but if they are, it's probably a lot more subtle, which is a real and totally acceptable thing for gals to do, especially in school. I can imagine this would be hard to animate properly, especially in a battle shonen. This is also why sometimes, you might not even know a character is gyaru until the creator confirms it later. (Think Camie and Mina from MHA). Like they were probably wearing the makeup the whole time, but because of the art style and the fact that it's animation, we couldn't tell straight away.

They could be doing something like this

It still has the pillars of gyaru makeup, like the nose stripe and the bright under eye, but if you don't look hard enough or you just pass by it in the street, you may miss it. What really gives away their subculture to the untrained eye is their accessories, the way they do their hair, their nails, and little things of that nature. It's why Momo has those big ass earrings, why she wears her choker, stuff like that. It all screams "gal" even without the makeup.

Now you may be saying "what about when she's not in school"

Well, like I said, she might still be wearing makeup but we cannot tell because of the medium this show is in. And two, do you see what she has to do damn near everyday? I wouldn't bother with makeup either. Imagine dodging fucking hair follicles in that kind of makeup, it'd be ruined within an hour. I'm sure she would do it if her life wasn't so hectic though, if she isn't already cuz like I said, we kinda can't tell.

But despite all of this, she does make a point to be dripped tf out at all times. I think that's also where some of the confusion comes from as well, because her style doesn't look like what we imagine as gyaru, especially in the west. But I'll get into that in part 2, because I can't add any more pictures lol.