Ask John: When Did Goth-Loli Invade Anime?

Question:
In the anime Panty and Stocking, the character Stocking dresses primarily in black and at one point refers to herself as being a goth. I’m curious but what was the first anime to feature a character that either dressed goth or identified themself as being one? I know that gothic fashion has caught on in anime/manga but I’m curious about when that trend really first began there.

Answer:
Anime, rather than manga, is my area of relative expertise, so I’ll have to limit my response to the anime field. I simply don’t know what and when the earliest appearances of gothic lolita fashion are in manga. Index Communications published the first issue of its quarterly magazine Gothic & Lolita Bible in early 2001, establishing a sort of bellwether for the fashion in media. Artist Koge Donbo may have been inspired by the fashion, as the characters Misha and Shia in her Pita-ten manga and its 2002 anime adaptation dressed in elaborate black & white dresses with frills and ribbons obviously modeled in the gothic lolita style. However, the Pita-ten characters don’t identify as gothic, nor do they consciously exhibit the demure and refined personalities requisite for the gothic style.

Unlike style concepts including tsundere & moé that gradually diffused into anime, the gothic lolita style was actually formally introduced by director Akiyuki Shinbo’s April 2004 original anime mini-series Cossette no Shouzou ~ Le Portrait de Petit Cossette, which literally advertised itself as the first gothloli anime. While Petit Cossette promoted itself as a gothic lolita anime, and it certainly exhibited a gothic visual design and tone, no one within the anime series used the term “gothic” or “gothic lolita.” Shinbo again literally employed the concept in his October 2004 television series Tsukuyomi ~ Moon Phase which starred a literal vampiric lolita from a gothic European castle. However, Hazuki’s personality is better described as tsundere than gothloli. The Rozen Maiden television series also premiered concurrently with Tsukuyomi. Yet, again in Rozen Maiden, none of the characters self-identify as gothic lolitas or are referred to as such. Lolita fashion appeared in the following year’s Paradise Kiss, but the first anime characters to self-identify as gothic lolitas were Lassine, Madeline, Roxanne, and Yvone in 2006’s Yamato Nadesico Shichihenge television series.

Since 2006 the gothic lolita fashion has further diffused through anime, in the process, losing some of its characteristic identity. Shows including 2007’s Saint October and Venus Versus Virus, 2008’s Kure-nai and Kyouran Kazoku Nikki, 2009’s Marie & Gali, Pandora Hearts, and Umineko no Naku Koro ni, and this year’s Panty & Stocking With Garterbelt and Shiki have all prominently included gothic fashions or characters, but in recent years characters including Evangelion’s Asuka & Rei, the girls of Suzumiya Haruhi, and K-On’s Mio Akiyama have been spotted in gothic attire despite their personalities being not of the elegantly morose gothic persuasion.