6 Comments

If I may add my two yen, I can't speak of other parts of the country, but here in the inaka of Shikoku, being a yankii is not so much a youth culture than a full subculture in itself.

Maybe it started as a youth culture decades ago, but those formerly young people never stopped being yankii as they aged, and nowadays, one becomes a yankii mostly because their parents or even grandparents are yankii.

Expand full comment
author

I've not yet seen the older yankiis but very interesting to learn they exist!

Expand full comment

I feel like the counter-culture thing is kind of a running theme in Shikoku in many forms :-D There are even the yankii on Jet Skis who terrorize the Seto Naikai. We had a run in or two with them on Megijima :-D

Expand full comment
author

They're water-borne now?! That's amazing!

Expand full comment

I hate the yankii on jet skis with a passion. You'd be shocked by how many of them there are nowadays. And they don't just stay around Megijima like they used to, they're everywhere now.

Expand full comment

I have come across quite a few 'Yankee' people during karate tournaments. You sometimes see small children with absurd hair styles being pushed into full contact tournaments and then getting yelled at if they lost or cried during the event.

Not all yankee parents are like this of course. But I have noticed that there seems to be a preference for parents like this to sign their kids up for 'full contact/fighting' karate over more traditional forms where character development is emphasized more than the violence.

Expand full comment