There are all kinds of love in this world, sweet and gentle, romantic and uplifting, cruel and hurtful, warm and familial. But few can compare to the kind of deep bonding love between women. This is the sentiment behind the film "Kamikaze Girls," directed by Tetsuya Nakashima and based on the novel by japanese author Novala Takemoto.

The film begins with Momoko, a frilly-dressed lolita, musing about the small town she lives in and being struck by a grocery truck full of cabbages. This story is from her point of view, told mostly through voice over, with some anime sequences thrown in to spice things up. Momoko laments the state of fashion in her backwater village, where everyone wears tracksuits and she has to spend hours just to get to her favorite Tokyo clothing boutique, "Baby, The Stars Shine Bright." She lives for dressing in the "rococo" style and yearns to live in 18th century France. Fashion, to her, is a way of life, and one must be "worthy" of the clothes before they can be worn. Her need for baby doll dresses leads her to sell her fathers knock-off Versace clothes through a magazine ad, and precipitates her meeting Ichigo, who needs a cheap Versace jacket in order to go to a wedding.

Ichigo is a moped-riding bad girl, part of an all-girl "motorcycle" gang, who dresses and acts tough to protect her fragile interior. She insists on befriending Momoko despite the girl's protestations, who at one point offers her a cabbage to use as her friend instead. But Ichigo persists, practically dragging Momoko around, and a genuine friendship begins to grow between the two girls. As the film progresses the viewer is shown how each woman grows and develops through their mutual friendship, and discover the strength of female bonding.

Quirky humor, psychedlic colorful visuals, and a variety of film techniques are utilized at every turn to drive home the message of female empowerment and unity through friendship and love. This is one of the funniest, cutest, sweetest and strongest films to come along in awhile, and is definitely not to be missed.