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A Means to Escape the Real World
I analyse the need for the Gothloli to “mother” dolls, to replace the Lost
Doll or become the Doll, as a desire to return to a safer, more familiar or
comforting haven and to find oneself or one’s place in the unsettling world
of adulthood, adult responsibilities and anxieties. To escape or return to
childhood is thus symbolic of an intention to reject society’s immense
pressures and a sign of disconnection from, disillusion with and
subconscious reaction to the real world and the Unknown.
According to Gordon Mathews and Bruce White, “young people [in
Japan] have long chafed at the demands of the adult social order”. 88 The
authors have investigated and identified an increasing trend with each new
generation to buck the system, noting that “many Japanese young people are
choosing not to enter ‘the adult social order’, not to hold stable jobs… or to
marry and have families… but to follow paths of their own”. 89 The authors
explain the reasoning behind this:
Socialization into adulthood in Japan has been a grueling process: from the
demands in secondary school for constant study for examinations, to the [extent to
which]… career-track workers devote their lives… to the demands that mothers
[should] abandon their own pursuits to devote themselves to their children. 90
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