Behavior #6: Passive (and not so passive) Aggression Towards Perceived Rivals

Over my years of going to live houses, I've seen countless examples of situations such as the one I described above, but less extreme. Many Japanese fangirls have no qualms about initiating physical and psychological aggression against perceived rivals. Mostly, it's small stuff – accidentally-on-purpose shoving the rival's shoulder or tripping over the rival's bag, or physical intimidation through deliberately standing too close to the rival and refusing to move, or the usual mean-girl behaviors – pointing at the rival and whispering about her in front of her face, or cutting off the rival's conversation by stepping in between her and her interlocutor (bonus points if she's talking to a band member).

However, it escalates to physical violence surprisingly often. Many years ago, when I attended visual kei shows, I was regularly punched and kicked by pint-sized fangirls who were angry that I'd stood on a patch of floor they perceived as “theirs” – didn't matter that I'd paid for a ticket, and that there was room to stand there – the secret hierarchy of fangirls in the know had already determined who would be entitled to stand in which spots on the floor, and therefore they thought that gave them license to viciously attack me. Getting punched was unpleasant, but I never moved from my spot in those situations, because I didn't feel like letting them push me around with violence, not after having paid some 3000 yen to attend the show. I also never hit back, because in general I don't believe in solving violence with more violence, and plus, the girls who attacked me were so much smaller than me that it didn't feel right. I don't go to those shows anymore, but if I did, I'm not sure I'd be so lenient anymore. Boys learn from an early age not to start fights with other, bigger boys. If girls haven't learned that yet, maybe it's time that they did.

I've noticed, though, that curiously, the smallest fangirls tend to be the most violent. It's as if they think that being small and therefore physically un-threatening entitles them to get away with being as violent as they like. Buck-Tick's standing crowds have none of the obsessive-compulsive organization of visual kei crowds – it's pretty much a push and shove free-for-all to get as close to the stage as possible. But a lot of deliberate violence occurs, and much of it seems to come from the fans who are so short, they can't really see the stage at all.

For years, I've wondered why these short fans bother to fight their way forward in the first place. Most standing venues have tiered floors. If you're on the shorter side, standing at the front of the first tier is the place to be – from there, you can actually see the stage without a bunch of people's sweaty arms in your face. Standing crowds can be tough to deal with even for taller people but for shorter people they can be borderline dangerous. If you're spending all your time fighting with people and you can't even see the stage, what's the point of going to the show at all?

And then, one day, it hit me: for these women, the violence is the point. Outside in the larger world, they're smaller than everyone else – easy targets for physical intimidation and sexual harassment. They feel powerless, and beyond that, Japanese society exerts a tremendous pressure on them to remain sweet, kind, and kawaii at all times. In general, Japanese culture discourages all public displays of strong emotion, but displays of anger or frustration from women are especially verboten. A Yamato Nadeshiko never shows her anger! So these women have no outlet – nowhere to channel all the negative emotions they keep bottled up inside all the time. But at standing concerts, not only is fighting borderline socially acceptable, the rest of the crowd is also mostly women, which minimizes the very real threat of male violence, be it physical or sexual. (For those of you who question that male violence is a thing, please go look up a history of Japanese train harassment, and know that reported incidents are just the tip of the iceberg.) In the unique environment of standing concerts, small fangirls are able to unleash their inner beast, and attempt to ruin the show for everyone around them.

Whether they preferentially attack certain people over others isn't a question I can answer, but everyone I know who's attended a standing show in Japan (female or male, Japanese or foreign) has had at least one experience of being physically attacked in the pit. Asking the instigator to stop is generally useless – fangirls who resort to physical violence at shows nearly always deny doing so. They hit you, but if you hit them back, they whine “stop hitting me!” However, paradoxically, I've found that the best way to deal with people like this is by hitting them very hard as soon as they attack you. There's an element of animal struggle in these interactions, and once you demonstrate that you're stronger than they are, they generally give up and go attack someone else. Law of the Jungle!

Still, I do wish they wouldn't dish it out if they can't take it. When you go out of your way to hit someone, you've got no right to complain if they hit you back. Someone needs to start a Fight Club for Japanese girls, pronto.

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