Loli-Pop: A Personal View Kathryn A. Hardy Bernal Saturday, 19 September 2009, Auckland’s Taste of Japan festival, left no doubt about the excitement that can be generated by Japanese subcultural style. Dressed up for the day’s fashion show, Vivien Masters (Gothic Lolita/Lolita), Chloe King (Cyberpunk/Cybergoth), and myself (Sweet Country Lolita), could not walk an inch without being mobbed by the media, photographers, and people wanting their photographs taken with us. I was not surprised. Second from left, Chloe King; third, Vivien Masters; fourth, Kathryn Hardy Bernal (wi

Novala Takemoto’s Shimotsuma Monogatari Kamikaze Girls and the Japanese Lolita KATHRYN A. HARDY BERNAL   A true Lolita must nurture a Rococo spirit and live a Rococo lifestyle.[1] Momoko Ryugasaki   So begins Novala Takemoto’s novel, Kamikaze Girls, known in Japan as Shimotsuma Monogatari (“Shimotsuma Story”), and the inspiration for Tetsuya Nakashima’s 2004 film of the same name.[2] Spawning a manga version, illustrated by Yukio Kanesada in 2005, it is an example of shōjo (teenage girls’) fiction that weaves together the stories of two