This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the word might have a more exact meaning in its borrowed state. All the other meanings and uses fall by the wayside, and the word often takes on concentrated nuances. The pink-pastel, covered-in-bows kawaii becomes the first definition and the default meaning. Since the non-Japanese-speaking world’s encounter with kawaii is through colourful, hyper-cute fashion or art and not through babies, puppies, and adorable grannies. Japanese sensibilities, minus context, filter through, bringing new ideas and words. Over the past several decades, contemporary Japanese culture has spread globally through video games, anime, pop music, and fashion. (Photo: YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP, Getty Images) It referred not only to saccharine pop idols, but also to all sorts of things, from birds to cakes and to even the Japanese royal family.ĭoughnuts don’t need cat ears and chocolate ribbons to be kawaii, but all that certainly does help. Yet, in Japan, the word’s original usage remained. During the 1990s and 2000s, kawaii continued to kick into overdrive, with fashion becoming louder and more colourful. Young women even started speaking in childlike tones, and anime recycled that style of speaking to mass audiences. The 1980s were more than happy to follow suit, ushering in a plethora of cutesy idols, both male and female. Kawaii culture wasn’t only crystallizing at that time, but also becoming big business. Cute stationary was also popular, and young women wrote in round characters because they were softer and more gentle than the typical ones. While the feline character’s design might have had a whiff of Dick Bruna’s Miffy, the coin purse was a hit. Students carried bags emblazoned with Snoopy, a character still referred to as “kawaii” in Japanese, while Sanrio released a small coin purse covered with the now iconic epitome of kawaii, Hello Kitty. While the word was certainly used prior, it was then that kawaii became commodified at a scale like never before.
But contemporary kawaii culture started long before.ĭuring the 1970s, Japan underwent a kawaii boom that seems, at times, to have never stopped.
The clothing designer has been a central player in the contemporary kawaii fashion movement with his Harajuku clothing shop 6% Doki Doki, which launched in 1995.
“If you translate kawaii into English, it’s ‘cute,’ but kawaii is much more emotional than cute,” Tokyo fashion mogul Sebastian Masuda, hailed as the Godfather of Kawaii, told me over a decade ago.
(in Japanese art and culture) the quality of being loveable or cute denoting a Japanese artistic and cultural style that emphasises the quality of cuteness, using bright colours and characters with a childlike appearanceĢ. The nuance might be slightly different, but the Collins English Dictionary defines it as the following:ġ. Kawaii is versatile and fun, while utsukushii has the burden of beauty. Things can be kimokawaii (creepy cute), busukawaii (ugly cute), or erokawaii (sexy cute). In comparison to the word utsukushii, meaning “beautiful” or “lovely,” the word kawaii is more playful. In Japanese, one might refer to your own grandma as kawaii, even if she’s not decked out in pink bows and a frilly dress. In Japanese, the word literally means “acceptable of affection” or “possible to love” and has been translated as meaning “cute,” “adorable,” “sweet,” “precious”, “pretty,” “endearing,” “darling,” and even “little.” Its use varies in Japanese and can refer to babies, puppies, young people, clothing, and even senior citizens. With people around the world growing up on Japanese popular culture, the word has also entered the international zeitgeist.
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You hear it in anime, you hear it on TV shows, and you hear it on the streets of Japan, where the word is uttered by young and old alike.
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