The Lolita Complex: - Scholarly Commons Home

Japanese Traditional and Psychological Relationships
with Ningyo
I asked a charming Japanese girl, “How can a doll live?”; “Why”, she
answered, “if you love it enough, it will live!” 50 Lafcadio Hearn. *
The Japanese Lolita or Gothloli is an adolescent girl or young (occasionally
†
not so young)
woman who displays an intense relationship with the Doll
(Jap. Ningyō, or “human shape”). She resembles a doll, regularly collects and
plays with dolls and designs and makes dolls’ clothing. She is even sighted,
especially around the streets of Harajuku and Shinjuku, the most popular
hotspots for the subculture in Japan, parading with a doll, often a miniature
version of and dressed identically to herself (Fig. 72). Her very favourite
pastime is to meet up with other doll-like Lolita and their dolly friends to
partake in tea and pretty cakes. In fact the dolls’ tea party quite often takes
the place of other “usual” forms of teenage behaviour.
* Patrick Lafcadio Hearn (1850 – 1904), also known as Koizumi Yakumo, was a writer of
Greek/Irish descent, born in the Greek island of Lefkada. After travelling around Japan in the
1890s with his close companion and guide, Kinjuro, he published Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan
(1894), amongst other books, which included insight into Japanese doll culture, traditions,
superstitions, legends, rituals, practices and aspects of everyday life in Japan.
† The usual age bracket for Lolita membership is around 13 – 26 years of age. However, during my
2007 research trip to Tokyo, I met some Gothloli that were older. I am also in contact with
Gothloli worldwide through MySpace, and some of these participants are in their thirties or more
(such as myself). See my friends list at www.myspace.com/botticelliangel_nz.
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