Zettai ryouiki (pronounced Zah-thai-rye-ouk-i)
(1) In an anime game (dating from 1995), an asset obtainable which playing which afforded the player something like the “invulnerability” or “unlimited damage” concepts familiar in gaming.
(2) As pop culture slang in women’s fashion (dating from 2014), the area of visible bare skin above the socks (classically the above-the-knee variety) but below the hemline of a mini-skirt, shorts or top.
1995: From the Japanese 絶対領域 (zettai ryōiki) (literally “absolute territory” and used variously in anime gaming (and the surrounding cultural milieu) and pop-culture fashion. The form of Romanization most common in the West is zettai ryouiki, the alternative spelling zettai ryōiki (ぜったいりょういき). Zettai ryouiki is a noun.
A often heard phrase in English ie “the (French / Germans / Jews / Koreans etc) have a word for everything”. It’s not literally true and given the huge size of the English vocabulary it’s probably more true of English than any other. Nobody is quite sure just how many words there are in English and given the frequency with which words are created and fall from use, there can only ever be estimates. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) says there are between 170-200,000 words currently in use but that estimate doesn’t include the most specialized technical and scientific terms or words from regional dialects and other specialized fields. English of course steals (the polite term among lexicographers is “borrowed”) much from other tongues and were all these and the technical terms and their variants to be included in the count, some have suggested the total might approach a million. What “the x have a word for everything” implies is a sense of surprise that anyone has a word for a thing or concept which seems variously funny, bizarre or unnecessary.
Sock heights in Japan can all be used with the zettai ryouiki look although the classists insist the genre is restricted to those in over-knee & thigh-high socks.
The term zettai ryouiki began in anime gaming in 1995 with the sense “holy space into which no other can intrude”, much along the same lines as “invulnerability” or “unlimited damage” in other games. It was obvious transferrable beyond gaming sub-culture and among Japanese youth, entered slang in the context of “one’s own personal space” which others shouldn’t transgress. Around 2013, the phrase was appropriated to describe the area of visible bare skin above the socks (classically above-the-knee socks) but below the hemline of a miniskirt, shorts or top. It isn’t certain but the use seems to have been adopted after an advertising agency organized a campaign involving young women, for various commercial purposes, applying temporary tattoos high on their thighs, suggesting they pair the look with dark socks or stockings, the top of the socks and the hem of their mini skirts framing the message. As a visual device, the intent was to focus on the flesh (and thus the logo) and this the fashionistas replicated although they wanted eyeballs only on their skin. Within months, the shop Zettai Ryōiki opened in Akihabara, Tokyo, dedicated to long socks and tights.
Zettai ryōiki: Lindsay Lohan exploring the possibilities.
The original use of zettai ryōiki described only the pairing of a miniskirt with over-knee or thigh-high socks which meant the visible skin area, though not dimensionally specific, existed within narrow parameters. Conceptually however, the idea eventually encompassed all styles which featured an expanse of skin between the top of the sock and the hem of whatever was worn above although the purists continue to decry the use of shorter socks. Helpfully, the most uncompromising of the sub-culture provided a mathematical formula in the form of a coefficient which was calculated using (1) the length of the miniskirt, (2) the visible skin and (3) the length of the sock which sits above the knee. Thus not height-dependent, known as the “golden ratio”, a tolerance of +/- 25% was allowed which permitted slight variations.
Kawai Maid Cafe & Bar Akiba Zettai Ryoiki, 3-1-1 Sotokanda 1F Obayashi Bldg., Chiyoda 101-0021 Tokyo Prefecture. Japanese futurists predict that when robotics are sufficiently advanced, among the first humanoid bots in Tokyo's bars and cafés will be in the style of the zettai ryoiki girls, adding they'll be dimensionally modeled on the basis of anime, not typical female human frames. The artistic motif will thus be mannerism rather than realism.
Japanese schoolgirls, long the trend-setters of the nation's fashions, like to pair zettai ryouiki with solid fluffy leg warmers. So influential are they that this roaming pack, although they've picked up the aesthetic, are not real school girls. So, beware of imitations: Tokyo, April 2024.
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