Litigious Lolitas

[Mulboyne]

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The lolita clothing brand Baby, The Stars Shine Bright is at the centre of Novala Takemoto's book "Shimotsuma Monogatari" which was also turned into a successful movie starring Kyoko Fukuda and Anna Tsuchiya. You can read more about Takemoto and the film in this thread. The brand is having a spot of bad publicity it seems. Four shop staff from the firm's Kobe branch are suing for unfair dismissal. They complain that the Kobe shop manager made unreasonable demands on them and there appear to have been accusations of pilfering which are disputed. A Kobe labour union has become involved and says that the case highlights the arbitrary way many apparel shop staff are treated. It seems that Baby was also often late paying wages and overtime. One of the four, Ai Iwakami, is trying to drum up popular support in quite impressive style. The video above shows that she hired a sound truck and led the former staff members, wearing lolita outfits, in a protest outside Harajuku Station last month. They printed up 1,000 leaflets detailing their complaint and handed them out to passers-by before heading to the company's office to present their complaints in person. There are no subtitles to the clip, which was produced by the Metropolitan Youth Union, but you can get an idea of what they are up to even if you can't follow Japanese. They don't meet the president of the company but a representative does accept a copy of their claim. The hearing is set for the 18th of September.