Gyaru, or “Gal,” is a label for a fashionable girl in Japanese culture. It’s a style that describes Japanese women who tan themselves, wear flashy clothes, heavy makeup, long nails, and bleached hair.
While certainly having its roots in Western influences in fashion and style, the gyaru started as a rebellious style that goes against the perceived Japanese beauty standard for traditional women. As such, you will also find that gals tend to have the reputation of being more sexually loose. However, that’s just a basic definition of a gyaru – the fashion comes in many forms as do those who embrace it as their own.
While gyaru is still a very popular form of fashion, gyaru in anime aren’t excessively common. Yet, if you have an interest in this type of fashionista as shown in anime, we got anime recommendations for that.
Best Anime With Gyaru / Gals
My Dress-Up Darling
My Dress-Up Darling has recently introduced anime fans to a more modern depiction of gyaru. The modern gal is fashionable more for the sake of being stylish rather than as a statement, and we are slurping it up.
This series follows a man burdened by shame for his feminine passion of doll-making who meets a gyaru girl that just wants to cosplay. Marin, the aforementioned cosplayer, is refreshing in that she isn’t ashamed of her interest in anime, eroge, and other weeb hobbies.
Furthermore, she is also popular and fashionable without being a mean girl, which are traits that often go hand-in-hand in high school anime.
My First Girlfriend is a Gal
My First Girlfriend is a Gal is both an embracer of the stereotype and a breaker of it at the same time.
The series is summed up in the title. The guy gets his first girlfriend, and she is a gyaru. However, unlike the stereotype says for gyaru, she is still a pure virgin.
From there, ecchi, comedy, and romance ensue – in that order.
Our Dating Story – The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me
Extremely similar to My First Girlfriend is a Gal, Our Dating Story is about an unpopular boy asking out the popular gyaru girl who actually agrees to date him.
Unlike My First Girlfriend is a Gal, Our Dating Story features less ecchi and is much more focused on a boy having his first dating experience and a more experienced girl who is unused to being treated well.
Peach Girl
One of the major plot points of Peach Girl is that the main character is constantly mistaken for a gyaru because she is tanned from swimming and her hair was bleached by the swimming pool. However, while people perceived her as a loose women, this innocent girl just wants the attentions of one man.
This may sound like a set-up for a touching romance, but Peach Girl is a fine vintage of high school drama where the wholesome main character is surrounded by serpents.
How Heavy Are The Dumbbells You Lift?
No one expected an anime about weight lifting at the gym, and so, no one expected it to star a gyaru either.
As this is a pretty educational anime, you can expect this flabby gyaru to embrace various exercise techniques and not complain about it as she hopes to shed some pounds.
Citrus
Citrus is a rather salacious yuri anime about two opposites that are new step-sisters and soon more than that. Essentially, one sister is your traditional Japanese beauty while the other is a gyaru girl.
They are both popular with men, but their hearts lie with each other!
Please Help Me! Galko-chan
This comedy series follows a friend group of three girls, each being one kind of stereotype or another. Their leader, Galko, is a gyaru who angles herself as a girl having a lot of life experience, but is just as innocent as the rest of them.
Gal and Dinosaur
One night, a gyaru gets drunk and the next morning she wakes up in her home with a dinosaur that followed her home the night before. This sort of thing does tend to happen in anime, doesn’t it?
Gal and Dinosaur is a pure comedy anime about skits between this fashionable girl and her mute dino friend.
Anohana
Anohana is a case of gyaru appearing in the most curious of places. Anohana is a drama anime surrounding a childhood friend group that drifted apart after the sudden tragic death of one of their friends. They are brought together again when that friend comes back as a ghost.
One member of that friend group grows up into a gyaru, albeit a tamer one, but has a fair share of turbulence churning under that fashionable veneer.
Danganronpa
Danganronpa, being a survival game anime, doesn’t have the strongest gyaru presence, but it is a series that really loves going over-the-top with stereotypical character designs.
Junko is displayed as being a fashionable girl and Asahina is probably frequently mistaken as one as well. As it is a series that built itself around extreme character designs and traits, the gyaru are right at home.
Super Gals
Simply put, Super Gals features a trio of three gyaru led by a gyaru with unshakable morals as they fight crime and other various injustice.
No, they don’t have superpowers, but they have strong minds and stronger attitudes.
3D Girlfriend
While never explicitly stated to be gyaru, Iroha embodies much of the style. She is blonde, beautiful, and clearly puts a lot of effort into her appearance. In fact, her appearance is one of the reasons Tsutsui writes her off at first.
Unfortunately, she’s got a lot more going on in her life than needing to care what people think about her, though her pending romance is a welcomed respite.
Miss Caretaker of Sunohara Hall
Hoping to become more manly, effeminate Shiina Aki moves to Tokyo for middle school and decides to live in a dorm. There, he finds that he will be living with four (very voluptuous) women, one of which is a gyaru.
To be fair to this series, it dared to meld ecchi and moe, and does so pretty successfully.
Please Don’t Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro
Did you ever want to be bullied by a fashionable gyaru girl?
The titular Nagatoro is more gyaru-lite. She is popular within her clique of more traditional gyarus, she is tanned although that happened through athletics, and she sports several fashionable piercings.
She isn’t as flashy as some gals on this list, but she has the attitude down perfectly. As this show is all about her teasing her senpai, you see her gyaru skills shine.
Hokkaido Gals are Super Adorable
Rural Hokkaido and gyaru are not a combination you expect to see, but a passion for fashion can strike any girl, anywhere.
Like many other gyaru anime, Hokkaido Gals are Super Adorable features the beautiful and popular, but lovably kind sort of gyaru who takes an immediate liking to the new boy from Tokyo. From there, they become friends and she helps this long-time loner make new friends in her rural Hokkaido town.
Kandagawa Jet Girls
Kandagawa Jet Girls focuses on a fictional race sport done on jet skis between teams of two. While the main characters are more your typical anime girls, one of the major teams they compete against are very clearly gyaru girls.
Why is it so many gyaru are water-oriented? Is it the swimsuits? Is this a cultural thing I’m missing?
Today’s Asuka Show
This relatively unknown show features short, 3-minute episodes about a cute, blonde, fashionable girl who does things, but everything she does is seems vaguely sexual to all the men around her.
There’s… Not much else to say. It’s peak horny comedy.
Do you have more good anime series featuring gyaru characters? Let fans know in the comments section below.
