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Hello Kitty Goodbye: WI no Kawaii trend in Japan? Badtz-Maru ATM cards : Pokémon decorated Airliners : prophylactics decorated with Monkichi the monkey : These are  just but of a tiny representative of the cult of the cute in modern Japanese culture and commerce. It is extremely pervasive. Taken from a Wired article dated December 1999 Cute, Inc. by Mary Roach http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.12/cute.html The Japanese word for cute is kawaii. You often hear it spoken alone, a  sentence and  a sentiment unto itself. I heard it first in a Tokyo train station in a  small shop devoted almost entirely to a penguin named Pingu, a superstar  of cute who began life as a Swiss clay animated figure and in Japan exploded  into a diversified line that includes pens, washcloths, and toilet-paper  covers. The Japanese teen magazine CREA called kawaii the most widely  used, widely  loved, habitual word in modern living Japanese. According to Sharon Kinsella,  a Cambridge University researcher who has written on the subject, the cute  craze began around 1970, when a fad for writing notes and letters in rounded,  childish characters began to catch on among teenage Japanese girls. Scholars  who studied the phenomenon dubbed it Anomalous Female Teenage Handwriting.  Kids called it burikko-ji, translated as kitten-writing or fake-child  writing. At one point in the mid-'80s, some 55 percent of 12- to 18-year-old girls were using it. Magazines, ads, even computer software picked up the _style_, which soon  broadened into a general fashion for talking, dressing, and acting like  a child, a practice that spawned a new verb: burikko suru, to fake-child-it. Sanrio's Hello Kitty character, which first appeared on accessories for  kitten-writing, has grown into a 50-creature line of in-house characters  and goods grossing more than $1 billion a year from sales and licensing.  Though the company faces competition from firms that crank out Japanese  goods bearing foreign cutesters (Mickey, Pingu, the Teletubbies) and from  a handful of smaller character-design houses like San-X and Super Planning  Company, it continues to hold its place as top dog in the empire of cute. I am will not, but you may want to psychoanalyze the country of Japan to discern the reason for this trend. But what if kitten writing does not become a phenomenon? And there is no Hello Kitty. Marketers and Manufacturers do not take on kawaii as a competitive tool. What does modern Japanese culture then look like? Sir Francis Burdett Anoko dakewa nigatenano   ( That kid is hard to deal with )                ;EjtfGLt.       jGffGL:,tfLLL,                   iK.     iGLLfffG#t    ;#L,.  ;W.        .:...      Wi             Gt .LjEfKD:    Ei       ..   :      #i            .#  .GEt  DfffWt        .....,     WL             LG;,iW:   LDt  ;K             .;.  Dj                ,;,,jfGGGtf  Lf                 tE                       iD, :jKD              ,tiLL.                       .tjt,:#:             ti    L:   EW,                      Dt          :i j,  tiLG:  ff.              fKi   :tWDjj:     Lj:L,tGtijD,          itif      fD,   ;t#.          if;Dj:   jW;         :tit            ;Wjj,          ;jt,. ,L;GDt.                    :KWL.               EGEi .E,,jLLji,.           :iLGi :j:               Gf,. Gi   ,Ej;tjLfffffLEEK#G;                      tGtGj   iE:ittGiL;   K;  :jGj                        ,fLfijE ,G ,fitttf Gt   :jGGt                         .fK.  Gjijtjift  GtiLj:  jf                        W,   EiiLj:jf    LG      E,                       jG     :. .;,     tGit,.:tD                       GL;;;;;fL,,,,;;;;iitEGitt,                        ,Ki;;;;iWLi;;;;;;,,,:Lf                            fL     jL            Lj                            fD,    Gf.         ;Dt                             .iffffLGGLLffffLLLt.

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to discern the reason for this trend. But what if kitten writing does not become a phenomenon? And there is no Hello Kitty. Marketers and Manufacturers do not take on kawaii as a competitive tool. What does modern Japanese culture then look like? I think the only likely POD for this would be some circumstance whereby Japan won the Pacific War. Until 1945, Japan had never been conquered, or even seriously dominated. Perry's Black Fleet came and went, and the Japanese turned that inroad to their own advantage, and with their national identity pretty much intact. But in 1945, they got their ass defeated and neo-colonialized by a nation capable, among other things, of rising to amazing heights of silliness and obsession with cute . America was still going through a process of redefining the nature of children, which opened the way for better or worse, to sensibilities that had never before existed so pervasively and extremely. Over the next two decades, this Yankee kitsch got laid heavily over a country whose self-image had been badly battered. Kawaii is one of the results. It's maybe a reflection of the way Japanese women and girls have come to assert themselves, to push their female culture into the public life. Also, perhaps, an affection for all things , a delight in the commonplace, as reflected in bonsai dandelions and viewing stones. Don't worry, Japan still has plenty of self-conscious, post-ironic young aesthetes, too. If kawaii hadn't happened, well, aside from the High Castle aspects of a Japanese victory? Maybe all the kogals would just have plain black shoulderbags. Best I could do on low blood sugar. - Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

In North America young girls are skipping cute and going right to sexy . I think its really strange that elementary school girls in the USA would wear skimpy tight clothes that show their midriffs, wear tonnes of makeup, and increasingly have plastic surgery (not to mention the dances they learn from MTV). The Japanese obession with cute is actually a good thing in my opinion. The Japanese are also very into designer clothes, Louis Vuitton sells more product in Japan than to any other country. Women used to wear kimonos (and still do) so the culture is used to spending huge sums for nice clothing. (A handmade kimono costs about as much as a new car). So without the Kawaii trend, I guess you would just have the sexy trend.

The Japanese obession with cute is actually a good thing in my opinion. The Japanese are also very into designer clothes, Louis Vuitton sells more product in Japan than to any other country. Women used to wear kimonos (and still do) so the culture is used to spending huge sums for nice clothing. (A handmade kimono costs about as much as a new car). For reference, when my mum came over on holiday, she tried on a kimono in the store. The tag price was 2 month pay for me, plus more for all teh acoutrements. I too agree that cute is a good thing.

The Japanese teen magazine CREA called kawaii the most widely  used, widely  loved, habitual word in modern living Japanese. According to Sharon Kinsella,  a Cambridge University researcher who has written on the subject, the cute  craze began around 1970, when a fad for writing notes and letters in rounded,  childish characters began to catch on among teenage Japanese girls. Well, no. Scary cute depictions of kittens have been commonplace in Japanese culture for a few hundred years. The kawaii trend is something a little different. Here's the original paper: http://www.kinsellaresearch.com/Cuties.html Kawaii is a derivation of a term whose principle meaning was 'shy' or 'embarrassed' and secondary meanings were 'pathetic', 'vulnerable', 'darling', 'loveable' and 'small'. In fact the modern sense of the word kawaii still has some nuances of pitiful whilst the term kawaisô derived directly from kawaii means pathetic, poor, and pitiable in a generally negative if not pleasing sense. So: Oh, my poor dear little electric mouse. Is my fuzzy-wuzzy little mousey-wousey feeling better?. Oh no! He is sick! I simply must take him to the Pokemon clinic. Thus: Instead in 1991 there was a national craze for the 100 year old twin sisters, Kin and Gin, who made frequent appearances in talk shows  on television, had their faces printed on all kinds of fancy merchandise such as Kin and Gin-san hard boiled orange sweets, and even recorded a song on CD together. They were described by young and older people alike as both kawaii (cute) and kawaiso (pitiful). Kin and Gin were sweet, frail old ladies with girlish old fashioned ways of expressing themselves and like many very old people they were slightly out of touch. The case of Kin San and Gin San illustrates that although cute was principally about childishness, a sense of weakness and disability