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Menhera and Jirai-kei

When people think of jirai-kei, they often have a very specific image in mind of a cute fashion with a dark side. This sounds similar to menhera, which also has a fashion aspect. I wrote this to debunk that, give some background on jirai-kei, and summarize the difference between jirai-kei and menhera.
To learn more about menhera, please go here!

Common looks associated with jirai-kei

Menhera is a term created by the online mental health community for people struggling with their mental health for the purpose of connection, while jirai-kei is a term for a particular negative stereotype that has evolved into it's own subculture
Menhera is inherently pro-recovery, while jirai-kei is not. Menhera is also a fashion, jirai-kei is not. I can explain.

Jirai-kei directly translates to "landmine-type," and can be interpreted as having a similar meaning to something like "psycho bitch". It refers to someone, usually (but not limited to) a woman, who is easily triggered, and will blow up and become abusive over small things. The term has existed since at least the 90s, usually used by mysoginist men to warn other men about dating red-flag women, based upon a variety of harmless traits. Starting in 2020 after a "landmine makeup challenge", the stereotype became more solidified as a certain specific look and went viral.

The original "jirai-kei" look from 2020 is inspired by the "Toyoko Kids," a group of young homeless people in the Shinjuku red-light district of Kabukicho. The Toyoko Kids, being young runaways in a red-light district, often influenced by the worst people around them (most infamously the late Howl Kalashnikov, a whole rabbithole of his own), are associated with underage prostitution, host club addiction, public drug use, alcoholism, public cutting circles, and violent delinquent behavior. Many of them would wear alternative fashions. Girly-kei became popular among women in the group, sometimes because it would make them "look more expensive" as customers at host clubs (especially the MCM bags), or appeal to others in the group. It should be noted that the Toyoko Kids are simply a group of young, vulnerable people, failed by their families and by the system, often trapped in the dangerous spiral of addiction and/or debt, and not all of them are bad or dangerous people. The stereotype comes from the most extreme behaviors that were filmed or reported on and went viral. Nowadays, the area around the Toyoko theater has been fenced off and there are less of them than before. However, they are what the modern stereotype parodies.

Many brands around 2020 began to capitalize on the trend and began selling pink x black girly-kei fashion labelled as "Jirai-kei" in order to not miss out any of the youth's latest buzzwords. It should be noted that not all brands did this, and many refused to use the word to describe their clothing due to finding it offensive. Fashions like Menhera and goth-punk and aesthetics such as yamikawaii have also been lumped in with "jirai-kei". Girly-kei as a fashion has existed since around 2010, with a variety of substyles, and it's association with the jirai-kei stereotype has been extremely harmful to people who simply enjoy girly-kei fashion, especially the dark girly substyle. Thus, jirai-kei is NOT a fashion, and does NOT have one singular look, as it is an amalgamation of other pre-existing styles as they trend. Even in the most hardcore jirai circles, they are adamant that it is not a fashion.
In fact, calling the fashion "jirai-kei" can even be dangerous because young or vulnerable people who find the outfits cute may stumble upon the subculture and get exposed to a variety of risky and harmful things. Not just that, but people who do wear the cute fashion because they like it often get associated with the subculture, which can lead to incorrect assumptions and harassment. So, it is important to understand that the subculture and the fashion associated with it are separate. To draw a comparison to menhera for the sake of the title, menhera fashion is a part of the menhera subculture (though it is not a requirement), as opposed to girly-kei fashion which is often associated with the jirai-kei subculture, but is considered separate.

Drawing by lovecoutorn showing the changes over time in outfit styles associated with jirai-kei.

Now that it has been made clear that the fashion and subculture are separate, I would like to talk about the subculture itself. It is generally a community for people with mental health issues who don't necessarily intend to change their behavior. In essence, this is a recovery-neutral/passively anti-recovery based subculture. In some cases, the community can be outright anti-recovery or can promote/encourage harmful behaviors. To put it simply, "Jirais are people who dont want to get better/dont care about getting better/want to get worse".
This goes back to the original meaning of "jirai-kei". Calling oneself "jirai" is calling oneself a landmine and associating with the attached stereotype, and purposefully associating with the negative stereotype of the Toyoko kids as well. This is essentially a self-deprecating label. The difference with the label of Menhera is that, while the term did get turned into an insult, the original meaning is something positive, created by and for people who struggle with mental health, while jirai-kei began as an insult and is kind of used as an insult towards oneself in the spirit of the community.

This ties in to the debate of whether it is okay or not to take on the "jirai-kei" label. There have even been few people online calling the usage of the term a "reclamation". From my understanding and what I have read, in Japan words do not really get reclaimed like they do in the west. It cannot be reclaimed to be a positive term for people who struggle with their mental health. Besides, the general community itself understands that it's a negative term, and they embrace that, for better or for worse, as it is a core part of the subculture.
There's also the aspect that the term was originally used against native Japanese mentally ill fem-presenting people and the stereotype is heavily associated with the Toyoko Kids, so even if it was possible to reclaim it, it can be argued that only those affected groups are the ones with the right to do so, and there would have to be a genuine large push from those groups to reclaim it, which there isn't. This is not to say that every self labelled jirai is some kind of "-ist," but to explain why the label can be considered problematic at times and can't be reclaimed to be something positive.

So is the label okay to use? There's not really a concrete yes or no answer, to be honest. Personally, I'd encourage anyone wanting to use it to at least know the origin and true meaning, and understand what the subculture is about.
Online English-speaking jirai spaces often differentiate themselves from people who misunderstand the meaning of jirai by calling themselves "lifestyle jirai". Many people have found community and ways to cope in such spaces and I do not want to discredit this, so please do not take this as hate. However, I will warn anyone who is interested that some parts of it may align with shedtwt or femcel type spaces and may be kind of toxic, so please be cautious. If you are interested, I would personally recommend looking into actively moderated menhera spaces first, as it may be a bit safer for those struggling with their mental health.

There is a lot of misinformation around the topic of jirai and a lot of people are scared to talk about it due to severe online harassment, as this was the reason for the Menheratic blog's deletion. It's also why you might see the term censored sometimes, as in the past there have been people who searched for every usage of the word on different sites or groups to harass people who said things about it. It should also be kept in mind as well that jirai-kei is a common tag used by brands or by people on social media who think it's just a fashion, and everyone, even Japanese people, is susceptible to misinfo. If you just like the fashion associated with it, look into girly-kei and yamikawaii! I have some sources and basic info in my main menhera info carrd.

These are my main sources. I highly recommend the first one. Please read them if you're interested in learning more, as I cut a lot of things out in order to summarize. If I got anything wrong, please contact me on Discord @menheramar.Be cautious with articles about the Toyoko Kids in general because they may contain pictures and talk of drug abuse and self harm.

“Jirai Kei” and the History of Girly Kei Fashion Stereotypes - Ribon-tan and others
difference between jirai and menhera - menhera info archeive
jirai kei as a trend and the inherent ableism and racism present within it - melatonin-melanin
The photographer documenting Tokyo's homeless teens - Kim Kahan
J-Fashion & Subcultures - plushy.gun
Japanese Fetishization in Landmine-Kei Communities - girlyteeth
Can We Please Not Label Strangers as "Jirai/Landmine"? - girlyteeth
Fashion labeled as "jirai-kei"'s evolution over time - lovecoutorn
"Toyoko Kids" in Kabukicho, Shinjuku - NHK reporting team
What is jirai? - the-real-loser-otaku-girl