\u201cKawaii\u201d simply means \u201ccute,\u201d but a whole subculture has sprung up around the phenomenon that\u2019s much more fascinating than it may seem on the surface. There are many layers to the concept \u2014 it can be part of a personal image, a quality of an inanimate object, or even a genre of art and entertainment.<\/p>\n
The word \u201ckawaii\u201d is originally a contraction of the phrase \u201ckao hayushi,\u201d which translates to \u201cface aglow\u201d \u2014 meaning the person is blushing. Interestingly, although it is usually written in hiragana, the kanji in ateji translates to \u201clovable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the concept of kawaii has existed in some form for centuries, it didn\u2019t arise as a subculture until the late 1960s, when student protests were held as a form of rebellion against the authorities. It quickly became a large subculture and has gradually found a place in almost every facet of society.<\/p>\n
You hear the word \u201ckawaii\u201d all the time in Japanese \u2014 it\u2019s comparable to \u201cnice\u201d in English, and it also acts as a filler word. However, as a subculture, several specific examples are most representative of kawaii.<\/p>\n
One of the first manifestations of kawaii was handwriting. In the 1970s, many teenage girls started using rounded characters and pictures (like stars, hearts, and faces) in their writing. Schools had to ban the style because it was too difficult to read.<\/p>\n
There are three main types of kawaii fashion:<\/p>\n
Japanese idols frequently embrace kawaii, including pop singers, actors, and models. Idols fit kawaii into their persona and image by adopting an innocent personality, vibrant clothing, and false eyelashes.<\/p>\n
Japan is famous for its themed caf\u00e9s, many of which are definitely kawaii. Top examples are cat caf\u00e9s and caf\u00e9s for characters like Pok\u00e9mon, Hello Kitty, and Pompompurin<\/a>.<\/p>\n Prefectures, companies, schools, museums, and events frequently have a mascot to represent them. These mascots tend to be based on animals \u2014 and they\u2019re always kawaii.<\/p>\n Businesses take advantage of the population\u2019s affection for kawaii by using the style in their advertising. It\u2019s possible to infuse anything from marketing campaigns to packaging for products with kawaii that is often through the use of faces.<\/p>\n The main way kawaii appears in food is in bento boxes. For instance, kyaraben<\/a> is all about creating food that resembles popular characters, animals, and other shapes. othree<\/a>, CC BY 2.0<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cKawaii\u201d simply means \u201ccute,\u201d but a whole subculture has sprung up around the phenomenon that\u2019s much more fascinating than it may seem on the surface. There are many layers to the concept \u2014 it can be part of a personal image, a quality of an inanimate object, or even a genre of art and entertainment. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":4814,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,59,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-japan","category-life-in-japan","category-miscellaneous"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50081,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions\/50081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Mascots<\/h4>\n
Advertising<\/h4>\n
Food<\/h4>\n
\nYou\u2019ll be able to experience kawaii anywhere you go in Japan. Even if you don\u2019t seek it out, you\u2019re sure to come across plenty of examples wherever you are in the country.<\/p>\n
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