How a cute Japanese icon turned into a $6b industry. ... a specialist in Cute Studies at Chuo University in Tokyo. The simplicity of the design makes it easy to reproduce on all manner of items.

Editor’s Note: Joshua Paul Dale is a professor at Tokyo Gakugei University. He is co-editor of “The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness”, and the editor of “Cute Studies,” a special issue ...

After all, if there’s anything Americans know about Japan, it’s that as a country, they are absolutely obsessed with cute things. The Japanese have a name for the obsession: Kawaii.

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 ...

TOKYO--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 ...

Pink globalisation, the spread of cute goods from Japan to other parts of the industrial world, has been a stronghold of consumption in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, particularly with Hello ...

A Japanese girl would prefer to be called kawaii than sexy or pretty.” For Grace St John, a 21-year-old drama student and kawaii convert from Birmingham, this is one of the key appeals.

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, 676 million posts are tagged # ...

Editor’s Note: Joshua Paul Dale is a professor at Tokyo Gakugei University. He is co-editor of “The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness”, and the editor of “Cute Studies,” a special issue ...