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Infantilising a Nation: The Kawaii Phenomenon
The Gothloli’s childlike countenance, combined with her preoccupation
with dolls and what is deemed as outwardly childish or frivolous behaviour,
has led critics to dismiss the subculture as superficial and to disregard it as
merely another development stemming from Japan’s obsession with all
things kawaii (“cute”), identified by a widespread attraction to miniature and
or cute things from netsuke, bonsai, haiku and sushi, to Hello Kitty and
Pokémon. 103 Based on surface readings of this overarching Japanese
motivation towards the Cute one might agree with this stance. Yet I
maintain that this dismissive attitude overlooks more complex psychological
and sociological issues behind the Lolita movement. Moreover, as Yuko
Hasegawa claims, the kawaii phenomenon reflects a “postponement of
maturity” but it also suggests a more positive “potential for
transformation” 104 and thus it is too simplistic to just write this
preoccupation off as naïvety.
To begin with, the term kawaii itself is complicated in meaning and
connections. According to Masafumi Monden:
The application of the word kawaii is immensely diverse…. Yomoto Inuhiko…
argues that the word kawaii can… describe, for example, an elderly man or a hot
spring, which in other languages… would sound strange if grammatically correct.
This illustrates [that the]… definition is almost impossible to grasp. 105
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