The film is extremely austere. Color is desaturated so that much of the film almost looks black and white, if not a palette of shades of gray with a dash of browns and blues. Ichikawa mostly uses long and medium shots, with extensive lateral tracking from one scene to another. The imagery is complimented by a solo piano score by Ryuichi Sakamoto which is somewhat repetitive, and reminiscent of George Winston's music.

If Tony Takitani concludes that following one's own path ultimately is a kind of trap or prison, Kamikaze Girls states that freedom is found only by following one's own path. The two films work together as cinematic yin and yang. While Tony Takitani is almost Bressonian, Kamikaze Girls is fully post-Tarantino, with some of the whimsy of Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

Nakashima's film bursts with super saturated colors, loud rock music and anime. The two girls, Momoko and Ichigo, define themselves by very specific clothes that represent distinct youth sub-cultures. The film's Japanese title refers to a town, Shimostuma, known for growing cabbage. The town is sixty miles from Tokyo, which makes it a remote Disneyland of fashion and culture. Nakashima makes fun of small town life, centered on shopping at the Wal-Mart type store and playing pachinko. While Eiko in Tony Takitani buys designer clothes, many of Kamikaze Girls characters are happy scrambling to purchase cheap knock-off t-shirts, oblivious to the mispelled "Versach" in big letters. Momoko is as obsessed a consumer of "Lolita" style clothing.

Momoko wishes she was in 18th Century France, sticking to herself until Ichigo, a biker girl with the mouth and attitude of Sonny Chiba, imposes herself on the skeptical Momoko. The two aren't exactly friends but create an alliance based on rebellion against their small town. Clothing serves as both a statement of identity and a shield, until the two girls take on aspects of each other. At one point when the pair are in one of Tokyo's fashion districts, Momoko, in voice-over states: "Fashion was my teacher. It taught me how to live. When I see clothes I want to become worthy of them." In Kamikaze Girls, at least for Momoko, the sense of fashion that isolated her in her small town is also the vehicle for her freedom to live on her own terms.