Psycho Gothic Lolita: A Review

Like many people, especially film buffs, I have a Netflix list a mile long. Unlike most people, mine is filled with crap. Just weird intriguing stuff that strikes my incredibly bizarre fancy. Case in point, Psycho Gothic Lolita a 2010 Japanese film whose title just hit the sweet spot of insane concepts in the same way as Sharktopus or RoboGeisha. Reading that, I immediately added it and avoided learning anything about it as to go in blind. What follows is the result.

Join me dear reader, as I try to dissect Psycho Gothic Lolita...


For something this wacky, it starts from a pretty standard premise. Yuki (Rina Akiyama) is your average girl living a carefree life with her parents, until one night on her birthday a gang of criminals burst into their home and slaughter Yuki's mother for seemingly no reason. Driven by vengeance, Yuki dons the leather and frills of a gothic lolita and goes on a Kill Bill-style murder spree. She's aided by her father, a wheelchair-bound priest, who's outfitted Yuki with a series of weaponized parasols that would make the Penguin blush. And in her quest for revenge, maybe she can discover why her mother was killed. It's your usual costumed vigilante story, but it works and gives the filmmakers a solid ground to build off of.

Rina Akiyama as Yuki.

Honestly, this feels like a Japanese Troma movie. All the hallmarks are there; the cartoony gore, the gratuitous fanservice, the random monster transformations. I half expected to see the infamous Troma car flip at some point. It also looks astoundingly cheap. The sets look as though the production just rented a couple warehouses and dressed them differently to make a new location. The costuming is shoddy as well, except for Yuki's gothic lolita outfit. You can tell where they spent the budget. And I'm not sure if it's just the cameras they used, but visually it seems more shot for television than for theaters.

Ruito Aoyagi as the main villain, The Vicious Gentleman.
Which is an awesome bad guy name. 

On the bright side, some of the fight scenes are mildly inventive. They focus more on flips and deflections than kicks and punches, and the stunt people handle their weapons effectively. And on the rare occasion that superpowers are busted out, so does the production's A-game. There is a lack of flair to their presentation though, more functional than visually interesting. At least they're edited for clarity and consistent scene geography, which is more than I can say for most Hollywood films. The highlights are the gore effects and the gothic lolita herself. Rina Akiyama holds the film effectively, playing the lead straight in contrast to the silliness around her. It makes her stand out more being the only person who isn't forgettably dull or completely over the top. The gore is fun. It's obviously fake, another victim of the budget I'd bet, but it fits the gonzo b-movie feel of the proceedings. All rubber limbs and geysers of bright red corn syrup blood.

My main problem is I'm not sure how seriously I'm supposed to be taking this movie. It has moments of complete tonal whiplash, swerving from actual drama one minute to cartoony comedy the next. I get the sense that the film is just supposed to be a bit of trashy fun, from the comic-book premise and ridiculous villains, but these serious moments are done much better than is usual for material like this. Maybe it's just the filmmakers are more talented than the b-movie norm or maybe they just got lucky, I don't know.

Ultimately, Psycho Gothic Lolita is a lark. It's a weird bit of Japanese craziness you'd find trolling the depths of Netflix. Not exactly deep or especially well-made, but entertaining for the most part. If like me this kind of B-movie wackiness is your cup of tea, I'd say give it a watch. For a laugh if nothing else. But for anyone who gets hung up on cheap gore and bizarre plot twists, you can safely skip it.

Final Score: 3/5