Ask John: Why is Rozen Maiden So Popular?

Question:
Why is Rozen Maiden so successful? More directly, why does Rozen Maiden have such a strong fanbase, and what exactly about the show inspires these adoring fans?

Answer:
Although Peach Pit’s gothic grim romance manga series Rozen Maiden (and its anime adaptation) star a cast of animated female dolls, which one may assume would appeal to a female audience, much of the series’ large and fervent cult following seems to consist of men. Avowed Rozen Maiden fans extend from anonymous individual devotees to Mr. Taro “Rozen” Aso, one of Japan’s most prominent and powerful politicians. Since the popularity of Rozen Maiden includes both the manga and anime, there must be something fundmental in the story and characters, transcending medium, which appeals to fans. There must also be something unique to Rozen Maiden that explains why so many men that normally have little interest in dolls and girls’ toys are fascinated with Rozen Maiden and its living doll characters. I think it would take a dissertation to fully explore and explain the fascination with Rozen Maiden, so in a limited response, I’ll just address a few points.

Rozen Maiden is a “Lolita” anime in the respect that it plays upon attraction toward small girls. Specifically, Rozen Maiden is a “Gothic Lolita” anime because it’s steeped in the luxuriant atmosphere of gentility, nobility, ornate fashion, violent passion, mystery, supernatural, and gloom – all potentially appealing characteristics. As an extension of this Gothic tone, the Lolita aspects of Rozen Maiden revolve around adoration, respect, and chivalric loyalty in place of libidinous desire. The Rozen Maiden dolls represent an idealized romance. They, especially Shinku, command respect, loyalty, and servitude, in return giving their owners, and by extension the audience, a sense of committment and purpose. At the same time, the small stature of the Rozen dolls, and the fact that they are dolls instead of human beings, provides their owner, and the audience, with a sense of possession and an absence of intimidation. The simultaneous condition of owning and being owned creates a feeling of fulfillment and a satisfying sense of being needed. The Rozen dolls may be small, but they’re not exactly like children that need to be coddled. The Rozen dolls are like small nobles – dignified and intelligent – so serving them feels more like an honor than a chore.

In order to have such a strong appeal to especially male fans, Rozen Maiden must somehow appeal to male psychology. In fact, Rozen Maiden not only appeals to psychology, the story itself embodies psychological concepts that readers and viewers unconsciously relate to. The primary Rozen Maidens embody psychological concepts. Shinku is the embodiment of the Freudian Ego – reason, control, and civility. Her nemesis is Suigintou, a dark doll that represents Freud’s “dark, inaccessible” part of the human personality, the Id. More specifically, Suigintou represents the part of the Id characterized by fear, loneliness, and rage while Hinaichigo represents the childlike, playful, and greedy aspects of the Id. Kanaria may be loosely associated with Freud’s concept of the Super-Ego in the sense that the Super-Ego concentrates on rules, regulations and the formal order of things while Kanaria endlessly obsesses over plans and methods. Suiseiseki and her sister Souseiseki represent Jung’s paired feminine Anima and masculine Animus.

Furthermore, the Alice Game that the Rozen sisters participate in serves as a metaphor for human development. The Alice Game involves the sisters fighting for dominance and submission of the others in order to attain a state of perfection. This struggle mirrors the human struggle of passion versus reason and the perpetual struggle to subsume negative impulses and desires in the effort to attain moral and spiritual perfection. The fighting among the Rozen sisters represents the various aspects of a human being’s personality constantly fighting with each other for dominance and influence.

Since Rozen Maiden is based upon such archetypal and universal psychological principles, readers and viewers instinctively empathize with or recoil from certain characters, and unconsciously relate to the struggle that the Rozen Maiden dolls participate in and represent. Rozen Maiden is a fascinating literary work because it hides much more thematic depth than it superficially reveals, and it’s fully engaging on both a superficial and literary level. Not all fans may consciously understand the reasons underneath their attraction to the story, but there are clearly elements of the story that contribute to why the story is so popular.