Kawaii is inescapable in Japan, where I have lived since the 1990s, so the global rise of adorable content online has not surprised me. As of the time of writing, ...

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.

In only its fourth year the Tokyo Girls Collection, a fashion show turned cultural extravaganza, has quickly become a premier event for Japan's trend-conscious and economically influential girls and ...

The rise of Hello Kitty. At the end of World War II, Japan faced a reckoning. The country’s surrender in 1945 forced its political leaders to confront the consequences of the nation’s ...

And kawaii style can be traced further back, the London-based Japanese animator Miki Kato argues in her 2002 essay, “Cute Culture,” to centuries-old Japanese aesthetic principles that prize ...

Sanrio recruited Shimizu and other illustrators to create “kawaii” characters at a time when cute, girlish styles were popular in Japan. But the word is used often in Japanese society, and not ...

8 kawaii mascots of Japan (Photo by Hetarllen Mumriken licensed CC BY-SA) Did you know that Japan has over 3,000 different mascots representing everything from cities to events?

Cute—"Kawaii" in local parlance—wears many guises in Japan. There's old-school kawaii, embodied by the helpless, mouthless gaze of Hello Kitty.

Hello Kitty turns 50 on Friday. Befitting a pop icon at midlife, the bubble-headed, bow-wearing character's fictional birthday has brought museum exhibits, a theme park spectacle and a national tour.

He dubs his genre as Kawaii Metal (or ‘Cute Metal’), which mixes some elements from heavy metal and J-Pop. One of the pioneers of this genre is a Japanese idol trio Babymetal, who just wrapped ...