Cuteness in Japanese culture

Doraemon written by cartoonist Hiroshi Fujimoto writing under the pen name Fujiko F. Fujio, is a successful Japanese manga series. It is considered as a Japanese cultural icon and is popular around the world, especially in Asia. Doraemon is well known in many ways such as manga, television series, films, video games, or even musical and translated into 9 languages. The first Doraemon in manga version was launched in December 1969. Forty-five volumes of the Doraemon comic series had been…

Mononoke film has had ambiguous archetypes and icons; ranging from the notion of the emperor’s characteristics to the traditional symbolism of feminism, to create a new vision of a Japan’s history. This film was negotiating changes in identity for its Japanese audience. Napier (2001) further argued that Princess Mononoke film consistently undermine audience expectations of how the world should be. The film combines ‘facts and fiction’ which was a crucial element in it destabilizing effect.…

convergence, Jenkins believes that it is a shift of culture that caused by both audiences and media companies mutually influencing each other. Media companies are trying to broaden its markets and earning more benefits and audiences are using these new media to connect with others and sharing information more fully.…

Clothing – Lolita Fashion Lolita Fashion is fashion sub culture which is based on the Victorian era of clothing, this fashion movement came out during the 90s in Japan as a form of radical street style, with the taste for the Hello Kitty cuteness like a doll with head gear, make up, ribbon & frilly skirt and lace. Lolita fashion is believed to be partly created as a movement against this growing trend. Followers of this fashion movement simply like to express themselves using the terms of cute…

metal. Babymetal’s first single was released in 2014, and “their debut album was the bestselling Japanese album in America in 2014” (Benjamin par 1). In a Nikkel Trendy interview, Babymetal’s producer, Kobametal, states he wanted to create a “Metal unit that would take on the guise of an Idol group”, (par 5) one that would grow into a dark heroine existence within the Idol world, and juxtapose the cuteness of idol with the power of metal. In her Team Rock article, Thea De Galllier defines Idol…

are often shown in gallery spaces, though he too retains a strong entrepreneurial sense. Directly drawn from traditionally flat Japanese imagery, Murakami’s superflat aesthetic appeals directly to otaku and kawaii culture, otaku as a fan-based subculture and kawaii as a culture of cuteness (Laurence). He views these cultures as a specific response to the trauma of Japanese people, from the Hiroshima disaster back in the second World War (Laurence). This can be seen in counterpoint to western…

anime and manga. The term used for such people in Japanese is otaku. Amongst fan culture, another term used is fujoshi which translates into “rotten girl” (Tanka and Ishida 77) and is used to describe females who are interested in yaoi, also known as Boys’ Love (BL) which revolves around male on male relationships in a romantic or erotic form. In this paper, the anime series Kiss Him, Not Me (also known as Watashi ga Motete Dōsunda in Japanese) will be used to explore two features which…