The Lolita Complex: - Scholarly Commons Home

counterculture to look to philosophies, religions and cultural traditions of
the “Other”, as a way of “finding answers” to the atrocities being
committed by mainstream societies, that an accommodating environment
was created which again allowed for a Western acceptance of ideas and
peoples of other nations. Prior to Kiss’ Japanesque look and Bowie’s kabuki-
influenced era, bands such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were
looking to the East for inspiration. By the early ‘70s, therefore, the time was
ripe for the collaborations between East and West which were to come.
It is unsurprising that at this point the Japanese related to artists such
as Bowie, but how did the Gothic find its place in Japan? Patrick Macias and
Izumi Evers agree that “the roots of the Japanese Goth, and Gothloli
(Gothic Lolita), scene go all the way back to pioneering late-1970s post-
Punk UK bands like Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy and Siouxsie and the Banshees” but,
according to them, “the first wave of Goth bewitched only a handful of
Japanese music fans”, and state that, as it has been shown, “the clothes
proved to have more impact than the music”. 41 The authors believe that this
is due to the fact that the Japanese people do not share the same heritage of
vampires, bats, castles, crucifixes and rosary beads, and that “Goth would
have to connect with uniquely Japanese notions of darkness and doom first
before it could gain momentum as a movement”. 42 They claim that this
connection, or “missing link”, came from Japan’s own pre-war history:
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