Part of the confusion stems from a misunderstanding of “kawaii,” which is Japanese for “cute” but also connotes a lovable or adorable essence. Sanrio recruited Shimizu and other ...

Kawaii aesthetics have long been a staple in differing iterations within Japanese culture, where the notoriously cutesy style first emerged as a handwriting style (particularly in girls), and then ...

After all, if there’s anything Americans know about Japan, it’s that as a country, they are absolutely obsessed with cute things. The Japanese have a name for the obsession: Kawaii.

Providing an in-depth overview of all things kawaii (cute), this book traces the cute aesthetic from its inception in the 1970s as a schoolgirl trend to its position as a leading cultural norm ...

Pink globalisation, the spread of cute goods from Japan to other parts of the industrial world, has been a stronghold of consumption in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, particularly with Hello ...

In Japan, ‘cute’ is a big deal. Their own word for it, kawaii (“ka-why-ee”), is more of an ethos than an adjective. Shops and billboards are filled with big-eyed fluffy figures.