In the past 5 years, Gal magazines have dropped like flies. Infact print in general has declined across the board.  With social media and user generated content sites like instagram and twitter becoming more prominent, print is almost becoming redundant and our beloved dokusha (reader) models are becoming fewer and further between.
Egg died the death, Ranzuki changed demographic, Popteen is just straight-up trash and Nuts is just gone so it's left us wondering who we can look up to for inspiration in the Gal world?

Let's be fair, the decline of Gal from what we once knew it to be is a bit sad but we can think about it another way. Gal is a subculture; it was never supposed to be a mainstream thing. The people who jumped off the gal bandwagon as soon as the boom ended weren't true to Gal in the first place, so now the chaff has been weeded out, we're left with the people that really count i.e these guys. Gal

Anyway, here are some of my favourite gals who have interesting careers or lives. I'm sure a lot of these individuals don't identify themselves as gal but if we're talking their style to be "gal-able" then that counts!

Mai Sano

Mai Sano is a makeup and hair teacher at popular Tokyo beauty school, Blea. As well as being a teacher, she often models as a dokusha model for magazines like SCawaii and Jelly. Previously she's been seen in magazines like Egg. A few months back, Mai was featured in this episode of Kawaii International where she talks about the state of Gal, which you can watch here.

Mai's painfully cool but casual look borders between laziness and stylistic genius and this is a look that I personally find incredibly hard to pull off myself. Denim, a muted colour pallet and clever layering are some of the keys to her look.
It's not surprising that she's a makeup and hair teacher because her makeup and hair are both s i c k e n i n g, she knows how to contour like a champion and her style is elegant but modest.
If you appreciate a girl who owns 800m pairs of sunglasses and knows how to command a room, Mai is you girl.

Aloha Yuno

Yuno lives on Okinawa, an island that's about a 2-hours flight away from Tokyo. Unlike mainland Japan, it has a tropical climate and coral beaches.
Yuno looks like she's living the dream beach-life, spending all day living in absolute paradise; at least that's what her Insta suggests. She doesn't post many pictures of herself (well compared to the amount of porny food and scenery pictures) but the general aesthetic of her Insta inspires the worst wanderlust in me. If you were to simplify her look into 2 words, it'd be "streetstyle mermaid"; lots of pink, lots of pink and lots of denim.

Bordering on sexual; look at that coordination. Just look at that feed

If you aspire to be a mermaid or want to escape to paradise for a few minutes, go follow her.

Genking

Genking identifies as male but also doesn't give a shit about genders so just does his own thing when it comes to clothing. Genking is an absolute champion of blending fast fashion clothing from brands like UNIQLO, Gu, Zara, H&M and Forever 21 and mixing them up with high-end accessories from brands like Chanel and Louboutin. SO GOOD.
Genking's instagram is just the stuff of dreams. His instagra, will just inspire you and make you cry forever

Coco Airi

Do you ever feel mad because you see people who are seriously wealthy but have the worst taste in clothes and think 'Mate if I had your money, I would dress fucking GOOD'. Well here's Coco Airi and she's how you'd want to dress if you were minted. The girl knows how to spend her money.
For this entry, I'm just going to show her in pictures of coats because she probably owns more coats than any of us have in our entire lives.

From my poorly done research, Coco was at some point a hostess but she appears to be from money regardless and I remember being told that her dad might have business in cabaret clubs.
Whatever is happening, girlfriend is now married and she is living a Barbie lifestyle. Does she work? Who knows! Does she look like she's having a great time? Um HELL YEAH. Am I mad? HELL YEAH but I'm going to watch with adoration and pure envy anyway,
Coco loves her Chanel and Louboutin and either one of both brands feature in like all her outfits.

Follow her if you love being mad and getting mad.

Riri

Riri is a member of CyberJapan Dance. For anyone who is not yet blessed by the knowledge of their existence, CJD are a gogo-dance team who tour events and clubs all around Japan and Asia, livening up parties and generally looking beautiful. There's lots of girls in this troupe but all of them have an image that could be described as Gal. ALL of them are worth following on Instagram but Riri is one of my faves.

She is adorable. Riri also works as a model and has been in campaigns for a ton of Shibuya fashion brands. One of my personal favourite things about her if her eye makeup; I smell an emerging trend! Might talk about that in a later post...

If you need lingerie and party outfit inspiration, she is honestly your girl. Like I wonder how much of her wardrobe is just bunny costumes and cute asymmetric knickers.