What is kawaii culture

Japanese kawaii culture has permeated all aspects of lifestyle and popular culture. Even the road crossing chirps rather than beeps!

Japanese cute culture is embodied by Japanese fashion, which focuses on cuteness and innocence. The kawaii aesthetic includes bright, colourful, frilly clothes and overstated bows. To complement the style, the kawaii mannerisms are overly cute and behave in an adorable, childish way. The Harajuku area of Tokyo was once associated with foreignness and difference, as it was an Americanised housing area named Washington Heights.

In , it became a pedestrianised area and epicentre for street fashion, with every style from gothic to cosplay and kawaii making an appearance. Harajuku is now a popular tourist destination, retaining its reputation as a pop culture hot spot. Japanese kawaii culture is a huge part of everyday life in Japan and so different from what we experience here in the UK. If you are planning a visit to Japan, and want to experience Japanese cute culture first hand, check out our popular Japanese guides.

To experience kawaii at home, explore our range of kimonos and kokeshi dolls and accessories. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Kawaii culture has been deeply connected with Japanese spirits and aesthetics for ages.

Kawaii Culture can be spotted in several areas in Tokyo. You can choose your destination depending on your interests. For example, if you are into Japanese Otaku culture such as anime and manga, head to Akihabara , in another word, heaven for geeks.

If you want to immerse yourself in a full of colorful shops and sweets, Harajuku offers everything you associate with kawaii culture. Unique themed cafes and popular theme parks can offer kawaii experience and photogenic spots too. Here are the best places to visit to enjoy kawaii culture in Tokyo. Takeshita street is a symbolic shopping street in Harajuku area. This shopping hub can be found in a 2 minutes walk from JR Harajuku station. It boasts a wide variety of shops and restaurants which are packed with the lively narrow street.

Walking along the street will allow you to discover colorful shops and photogenic sweets which many school girls love to get after school or on the weekends. There are also unique shops specialized in popular character items such as Hello Kitty, Sanrio characters and famous anime characters! As one of the most popular shopping spots in Tokyo , Shibuya is home to a number of giant shopping complexes.

Shibuya is among them, which has served as a symbolic fashion center since its opening in It features retail stores which mainly target young adults in their teens through twenties. You can get trendy clothing as well as fashionable accessories at a relatively affordable price compared to other luxurious shopping spots around.

Just browsing the shops will also allow you to take a glimpse of the trendy items in Japan today! Other popular tourist attractions such as Shibuya Crossing are also within walking distance.

If you look for a Kawaii culture spot that is also enjoyable for your kids, visit Sanrio Puroland! Nestled in Tama city, a quiet suburb town in the western Tokyo, this popular theme park is visited by about 1. It features world-famous Sanrio characters such as Hello Kitty and Gudetama, which attracts Sanrio fans from in and outside of Japan! At Sanrio Puroland, visitors can greet and take pictures with their favorite characters.

And it means business. So, what is kawaii and why here and why now? As the Japanese word for cute, kawaii has connotations of shyness, embarrassment, vulnerability, darlingness and lovability. Think babies and small fluffy creatures. In many cases, it is a signifier for innocence, youth, charm, openness and naturalness, while its darker aspects have led it to be rather brutally applied to frailty and even physical handicap as a marker of adorability.

You may not have noticed, but look carefully and Hello Kitty has no mouth. As kawaii suggests, cute culture first originated in Japan, emerging out of the student protests of the lates. As the economy progressed through the s and s, so did consumer subcultures — and cute as a style began to be expressed through childish handwriting, speech, dress, products, shops, cafes and food.

Banks and commercial airlines began to explore cute as a strategy to increase their appeal, and cultural forms followed in the footsteps of the once invincible Japanese corporate machine, spreading the soft power of Japanese modernity. Where Nissan, Mitsubishi, Sony and Nintendo had carved a path, so trod Japanese anime, film and music. The s also saw the refreshing of the ultimate kawaii brand, Hello Kitty, expanded to include products aimed at teens and adults rather than pre-adolescent girls.