Following Japan’s success during World War I, the country witnessed a boom in industry, with European and American brands quickly jumping into the market. Worldwide, a reckoning was underway as the Roaring Twenties catapulted.
Japan was no exception. From the years 1920 to 1929, the modern girl and modern boy were the main stars in Japan’s own Roaring 20s. Much as the new woman reigned in the 1910s, the modern girl, or moga for short, took on a larger life thanks to mass media and academic discourse.
Her male counterpart didn’t attract nearly as much attention. If anything, the mobo simply existed to balance out the moga.
But as much as she was talked about, the modern girl with her short hair, bold makeup, and knee-length dresses wasn’t easy to pin down. Was she merely feigning participation in modernity? Or was she acutely aware of her autonomy? Why did the mobo fail to make waves? And what did it even mean to be “modern” anyways?
Table of Contents
ToggleThe modern girl emerges

The early years of the Taisho era witnessed rising consumerism and social democracy. Tokyo’s Ginza flourished in its resurrection as the mecca of consumerism and Western fashion following the devastating Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923.
At the same time, more women moved into the workforce, taking on jobs as secretaries, teachers, factory workers, and waitresses. They educated themselves on social issues through magazines like Seito (Bluestocking) and Josei (Woman).
Women in factories formed unions and engaged in strikes for better pay and working conditions. In 1925, the Women’s Suffrage League (婦選獲得同盟; Fusen kakutoku domei) was established with the goal of securing national suffrage for women.
Among these working-class women emerged the modern girl. She was typically in her late teens and early twenties and cut her hair in the short bob or finger wave style. Her go-to attire included a floppy hat or the bell-shaped cloche hat and shapeless lightweight anpapa dresses with hemlines below the knee [1]. She wore heavy makeup with thinly painted eyebrows.
The moga shopped and dined in Ginza, saw the latest American films in Asakusa, and strolled down beaches in Kamakura. In Osaka, she strolled down Shinsaibashi in kimono with bold modern designs ranging from stripes to playing card motifs [2].
Modern women challenge the norm

Of course, women bucked tradition long before the term “modern girl” arrived in 1923. Early on, though, following Western trends often meant inviting scorn and ridicule.
Following her return from Europe after the end of WWI, young writer Mochizuki Yuriko took the risk and cut her hair into a bob. She felt too keenly the trappings of traditional aesthetics of kimono and long hairstyles, later writing that “[l]ong Japanese hair was…beautiful, but that, too, had become anachronistic” [3]. Mochizuki later recalled her mother’s reaction to her new hairstyle:
My mother took one look at me and cried out in indignation, “You must be crazy! If you go out, everyone will call you one of those new women”—the term modern girl was not in use yet… [3].
Barbara Sato in her book The New Japanese Woman (affiliate link) traces the first appearance of the modern girl to 1923 by writer Kitazawa Chogo in an article for Josei kaizo (Women’s Reform). But the term and its shortened appellation moga gained exposure in an article by Kitazawa Shuichi on the modern girl in England and foreshadowed the emergence of her Japanese counterpart.
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“There is little doubt in my mind that if the modern girl has not already appeared in Japanese society, she soon will,” he wrote [3].
And with that, magazines began pumping out articles on the modern girl from all angles. By the late 20s, she’d become larger than life.
Much as mass media capitalized on the New Woman ideal with women like Tamura Toshiko, they also drooled over the titillating effervescent image of the moga. She graced advertisements for beer and worked as floor models or “mannequin girls” in department stores. Cosmetic giant Shiseido turned to the moga to market makeup and perfume, just as they targeted the schoolgirls in the late Meiji era and the new woman in the 1910s [4].
Just dumb and vapid, or someone more?
Inevitably, the moga found herself subject to criticism. Seito founder and feminist Hiratsuka Raicho didn’t think too highly of the moga, writing, “It is beyond me why anyone in the world would call this type of girl a modern girl” [3]. She’d envisioned the true modern girl to be an inheritor of the new woman legacy, engaging in social and political debates. Her promiscuity and consumption of American films led many to dismiss her as superficial.
In contrast, some intellectuals like journalist Chiba Kameo saw the moga as a herald for women’s economic and social independence:
They are so lighthearted. It is as if they are calling out: ‘We refuse to give in any more, not to you men, or to anyone!’…. Not bound by rules, they think for themselves and are their own masters. According to my definition, they constitute the modern girl [4].
The Cafe Waitress and Tanizaki’s Naomi

The moga was most idealized in the profession of cafe waitress (女給; jokyu). Wearing a white apron over her kimono or Western dresses, the waitress boomed in popularity post-earthquake for her fashion and customer service.
The jokyu especially became the object of fascination for artists experimenting with Western-style techniques. With some exceptions, traditional Japanese artwork rarely depicted figures making direct eye contact with the viewer. These modern artists used the cafe waitress and her alluring, direct gaze as their muse [5].
In literature, the modern cafe waitress’s sexual freedom often took center stage. The most well-known modern girl in Japanese literature is Naomi from Tanizaki Jun’ichiro’s Chijin no Ai (痴人の愛; A Fool’s Love).
Serialized from 1924-1925, the book centers on the emotionally fraught relationship between twenty-eight-year-old engineer Joji and fifteen-year-old cafe waitress Naomi. Drawn to her style and wit, Joji convinces her to work as his maid, and they ultimately secretly marry. However, her promiscuous ways come to light, which she refuses to apologize for after Joji exposes her. Despite the toxicity of their relationship, Joji is unable to fully sever ties with her and ultimately gives in to her demands in order to keep her in his life.
The Modern Girl in Film
The moga would also be immortalized in film. Actresses like Date Satoko and Takehisa Chieko added charismatic flair to the moga style [1].
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Despite the panic over the moga’s loose morals, they weren’t always painted in a negative light. Gosho Heinosuke’s 1931 comedy Madamu to nyōbō (マダムと女房; The Neighbor’s Wife and Mine) juxtaposes the protagonist’s traditional housewife to the flamboyant jazz-singing moga next door. Here, the moga is depicted in a rather positive light. Thanks to her jazz band, the protagonist, a playwright, is able to finish his latest script. In fact, it’s his wife who turns out to be the antagonist, later stabbing him with her hairpin in a fit of jealousy [6].

Mobo: The Man in Her Shadow
In contrast, the modern boy or mobo didn’t attract nearly as much attention as the moga.
Like the moga, the mobo was distinguished as a young urbanite attuned to the latest Western trends. In contrast to the counter-culture Bankara movement flouting Western influence, the mobo embraced Western fashion.
A 1930 dictionary on modern words defined the mobo as someone “flashy and [who] follows the latest fads, sports a silk handkerchief in his breast pocket, wears bell-bottomed trousers, and is kind of a hooligan” [3]. He often donned a boater hat and was partial to round spectacles popularized by American actor Harold Lloyd [6].
Unlike the moga, the mobo wasn’t subject to the intense intellectual discourse, nor did companies heavily target him in advertisements. If anything, most looked down on the mobo for his gleeful indulgence in debauchery — which, for men, was nothing new. Most mobo in film perpetrated this delinquent vibe, as in Ozu Yasujiro’s 1931 Shukujo to hige (淑女と髯; The Lady and the Beard), casting Date Satoko as a villainous moga with her swaggering mobo accomplices [6].
The Hype Dies Down
By the 1930s, factors like rising militarism, economic woes, and the eve of war eventually diminished the decadence of the moga-mobo era.
The moga still featured prominently on the covers of Shiseido’s magazine Shiseido Graph in the late 30s, playing golf and riding bicycles in the latest contemporary fashion [4]. But soon overt Westernization became frowned upon. As disposable income dwindled, the heyday of rampant consumerism shuttered the lifestyle of the moga and mobo.
Like the flapper in the US, the moga continues to draw intrigue as an icon of a short-lived, glamorous era. She was just one facet of a larger movement of women making their way in an industrializing world, flouting norms that had long defined their lives.
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Sources
[1] 海外がビビった。戦前の日本人女性のファッションがモダンすぎる. Trip Editor.
[2] 派手好みの系譜をたどってみると(下)明治〜大正〜昭和 モガが美を競った心斎橋. Sankei News.
[3] Sato, Barbara. The New Japanese Woman: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan. Duke University Press, 2003.
[4] Selling Shiseido: Cosmetics Advertising & Design in Early 20th-Century Japan. MIT Visualizing Cultures.
[5] Inoue, Mariko. “The Gaze of the Café Waitress: From Selling Eroticism to Constructing Autonomy.” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal. English Supplement, no. 15 (1998): 78–106.
[6] Centeno Martin, Marcos Pablo and Morita, N., eds. Japan beyond its borders: transnational approaches to film and media. Seibunsha, 2020.