Vivid punk is the label for a short lived gyaruo trend that appeared around 2010-2011 and disappeared soon after. This coincides with the discontinuation of Kaoru Watanabe's haaady brand JSG which ran from July 2005 to July 2013. It's featured in Men's Egg Youth and is said to be a hybrid mix of j-punk and amekaji surf. Like v-host kei, I get the impression it's a part of the extinction burst of gyaruo's mainstream popularity. Experimenting by combining pre-established trends to breathe fresh air into a declining scene. From what I've read, Shibuya's youth fashion culture peaked in 2005. Quote from Taku Uetake: "A vigilante group called 'SCGP,' mainly composed of Shibuya shop owners, has been excluding young people who gather in Shibuya since 2005. This is one of the reasons why Shibuya's youth fashion culture has declined."

It reads to me as the guys version of haaady gyaru, which peaked in 2008, but as you can see below vivid punk quickly evolved out of the more 80s pop style and into a more modern, emo/scene style cuts, prints and bright tones. It wouldn't be the first time that gals set a trend and the boys followed a few years later (see: sentaa guy).

What about Haaady gyaruo?

I don't think it exists in the way that the gaijin gal scene sometimes asserts. There's a popular photo of reader model Yoppi on the internet often labelled in the west as haaady gyaruo, and the style has been described as hade(flashy), but Yoppi was featured wearing the same outfit in volume 17 of Men's Egg Youth under their vivid punk street snaps, so my current takeaway is that it was called vivid punk.

Vivid punk is a youth style, so gyaruo would likely age out of it and into more mature styles like onii kei or mote in their early 20s. If you wanna find evidence of this style outside of publications I recommend looking for Chibo and Takezo's street snaps, as they basically carried the style. As a duo they were known as 'ChiiTake' which is kinda cute.

Brands: Super Lovers, Algonquins, Glad News

Magazines: Men's Egg Youth

Models: Chihiro Saito (Chi-bo-), Takeshi Yamada (Takezo-)

Appearances

Men's Egg Youth Plus 2

Men's Egg Youth Vol.16

Men's Egg Youth Vol.17