We all remember our first time. For some it was painful, for others it was fun, and for the remainder it was scary enough to leave us whimpering at the thought of having to go back. Mine…well my first time was a gentle introduction. Like most, it took place in college. I as surrounded by friends and the couch smelled of an intoxicating aroma somewhere between stale popcorn and old feet. The two girls involved were very pretty and managed to appeal to both sides of me.
The biker and the Lolita.
If I had been any older and had lacked the much needed lubricant of year’s worth of manga and anime, the experience would have probably been much more painful and traumatizing for all involved.
Kamikaze Girls was not only my introduction into live action Asian movies but Japanese fashion as well. My eyes had been opened and I found myself slightly horrified and smitten all at once. Kamikaze Girls starts off with a Lolita getting hit by a truck and doesn’t improve from there.
Momoko is the daughter of a former gangster turned clothes designer. When I say ‘clothes designer’ I use the term loosely. So loosely in fact, that the only way that you can understand the quality of these clothes is for me to also explain that the making of them get’s Momoko’s father in trouble with not just the mob, but Universal Studios and Versace as well (both of which are infinitely more dangerous). This prompts the twosomes move to grandma’s house out in the middle of Shimotsuma.
Momoko isn’t upset by all this for the reasons you might think, because against all natural odds Momoko has become the exact opposite of her gangster father and famous gang mother. She wears pink, she prances in lace, and carts around a damn parasol.
Momoko is a Lolita who wishes she had been born in France’s Rococo Era, and not only is she a freakishly long way away from her favorite shops now that her and her father have moved, she is also low on cash. So what’s a fashion conscious young woman to do? Pick up where her errant father left off and sell fake brands of course. What Momoko doesn’t take into account is that biker chicks like clothes too, and just like universal studios, Versace, and the mob, they get pretty ticked off when they find knock-offs rather than the real thing.
The movie centers around how Momoko (Kyoko Fukada) and Ichigo (Anna Tsuchiya), a member of an all girl’s gang, become best friends. There’s love, gambling, fighting, and chiffon skirts. Everything you could ask for when losing your Asian movie cherry.
Kamikaze girls is the poster child for a fun, random, comedy and still manages to stick to a plausible storyline. Barely.
The point is that you’ll enjoy watching the seemingly tough as nails Ichigo soften to almost non steroid proportions, while Ichigo loosens up enough to get a bit of dirt on her perfectly curled hair and pristine pantaloons. Be aware that some parts of this movie are exaggerations while others are not. After I googled my first Lolita I was pleased to see that it came with subcategories (namely Gothic, Classic, and Punk, whereas Momoko was Sweet). There is one character from the movie that I have never, nor never will, search and I hope to god when I go to Japan that he doesn’t actually exist. Some 30 year old monstrosity with tight jeans, strangle-you-to-death-chest hair, and a 50’s curl that goes beyond human proportions and stretches past the point of no return. Small children, easily digestible animals, and pregnant women beware.
Kamikaze Girls is an adaption from Shimotsuma Monogatari’s novel and manga. Even now, after I have a few more live action anime adaptions under my belt, Kamikaze Girls is still one of my favorites. Whether because it was my first, or because it was just that good, Kamikaze Girls is one of the few upchucked furballs of randomness that get a thumbs up from me. Even if all the ribbons and frills make my eyeballs feel like the silently screaming lobsters inside of the vats of boiling water in the kitchen of Red Lobsters. But yeah, other than that one little thing, totally worth it.
Kamikaze Girls was written by Novala Takemoto and directed by Tetsuya Nakashima
