THE MORTUARY-COLD, air-conditioned lobby of Tokyo's Keio Plaza Hotel is home to businessmen in crisp black suits who sip US$10 coffees and nod along to conversations that never rise above a murmur. But the studied cool is broken like a spell when Novala Takemoto swishes in, drawing faces in his direction like sunflowers to the sun and trailing the faint whiff of Christian Dior perfume.
The 36-year-old cult novelist cuts quite a figure: willowy frame draped in a Comme des Garcons jacket and wrapped in a black Vivienne Westwood dress; designer jewellery hanging off long, bony fingers that keep fluttering up to his bird's nest hair. Think bastard offspring of Oscar Wilde or Vlad the Impaler with a pinch of Keith Richards and you're probably with the rest of the wide-eyed Keio Plaza clientele. 'I like beautiful things,' he says, by way of explanation.
Takemoto's striking ensemble probably costs the equivalent of the health budget of a small African country, but then he has the money, after the success of his novel Shimotsuma Monogatari (Shimotsuma Story), which has sold 130,000 copies. The book has solidified a burgeoning writing career that began in the early 1990s, and includes nominations for the Yukio Mishima Literary Prize in 2003 and 2004. Now, a movie called Kamikaze Girls based on Shimotsuma is proving a hit in Japan and a cult success abroad, where some critics are saying it could bring Japan's Lolita subculture to wider shores.
Not to be confused with the erotic fascination with schoolgirls that characterises much Japanese pornography, (and named after the Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov's infamous book about a college professor's sexual relationship with a schoolgirl), Lolitas' concerns are essentially aesthetic: an exaggerated appreciation for childish or feminine things such as corsets, frills and ribbons, dollhouse chic, Hello Kitty and Alice in Wonderland.
In a country never slow to capitalise on the latest fad, Lolita has become something of a growth industry, with clubs, pop groups and specialist shops catering for enthusiasts, who've splintered off into sub-genres: Victorian Maidens, Gothic Lolitas and even Mary Magdalenes.
If the Lolita enthusiasts share a philosophy, it might be best understood as reluctance to enter the 'dirty' world of adults, particularly men. Motifs featuring orphans, angels, innocent cartoon animals and lost princesses are popular. Takemoto's small Tokyo apartment is a shrine to them.