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 ...

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.