The Lolita Complex: - Scholarly Commons Home

mainstream? When it is no longer about the concerns of its instigators and
thus loses credibility? I mean in this latter case that, if it moves out of Japan,
should it then be classed as pseudo-Lolita? In other words, how does it
translate when taken out of its country of origin in terms of the specifics of
resistance pertinent to that nation? Just as the shift of Punk from Britain to
other cultures meant that it no longer stood for the same sense of rebellion
in regard to local politics and anxieties, becoming distilled once re-localised,
is this the case for Lolita? Can Lolita make the same statements about its
society once removed from its locality, or can those statements still apply to
the site of relocation? These are not questions I have aimed to answer
within the scope of this current investigation but they are queries I intend to
raise in regard to future exploration.
The recent earthquakes, tsunami, however, and the impending doom
aroused in me the sensation that these points may be moot. My immediate
feeling after the catastrophe was that my concentration on this work was in
fact superficial. I asked myself whether there were greater concerns than this
endeavour, which seemed at the time to be trivial in comparison to what
was unfolding in the nation of Japan. At the very least I thought to myself
that this would be the final nail in the coffin for Lolita.
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