Yami-Kawaii, Style that's challenging biggest tabu in Japan

On harajuku street, which is the most popular fashion shopping street in Tokyo, you can see many people dressed in a way, we might describe as weird, but it's how harajuku subculture fashion looks like.

Even though it seems like nothing can get any weirder than that, recently on Harajuku street we can see people dressed in specific way. 

It's Called "Yami-kawai" which means "sick cute", it combines soft pastel colors, animals, anime characters and combines these with guns, syringes, bandages, pills and so on. Phrases about suicide and death are also popular for yami-kawaii aesthetics, often seen in art or fashion. Japan has reletively higher suicide rate than other countries. On average 70 Japanese people commits suicide every day. However this subject is avoided by everyone in japan, it's basically tabu that no-one  wants to talk about.

Example of Yami-Kawaii Fashion

The most famous icon of yami-kawaii is Menhera-chan, a magical girl with mental health issues! Magical girl manga and anime such as Card Captor Sakura and Sailor Moon have always been super popular in Japan and typical kawaii. Menhera-chan is however way more gory and cynical compared to your regular shojo manga.