Kawaii Culture Research Paper
JPS124 Manga and Japanese Contemporary Culture
Individual Essay
Hoi Chung Fok (James) 44677472
Due Date: 20rd November, 2015
Word Count (include references):1653
Cuteness and Kawaii essentially means childlike; it celebrates sweet, adorable, innocent, pure, simple, genuine, gentle, vulnerable, weak and inexperienced social behavior and physical appearance. (Kinsella, 1995) The word Kawaii was first appeared in the book - Konjaku Monogatari Shyu in the 12 century Heian period (Heian Jidai) Japan. Up until the early Edo period (Edo Jidai), the negative sense of Kawaii faded away, position emotional implications such as “Sympathetic” “likeable” became the mainstream, and the word Kawaii began to borrow Chinese Character …show more content…
In 2004, Harvard University has held the “Cute Culture in Japan” seminar for the first time in Harvard history, it aimed to not only explore the expression of cuteness culture in Japan, but also discussed its social impact. In addition, Belson and Bremner (2003) analyzing the process of commercialization and globalization of the Hello Kitty merchandise in order to investigate the origin of contemporary Japanese popular culture – cuteness (kawaii) culture. European and American scholars has its own unique insights on Japanese cuteness culture (Kawaii Bunka) and they also refer it as symbolic icon of the formation of Japanese Consumer Society, an important indicator on observing and analyzing social changes in contemporary Japanese society. Unfortunately, due to the excessive emphasis on the characteristic of the cuteness culture itself, general public as well as the scholars tended to ignore the process of origin, development and popularization of the cuteness culture, thus no different with any of the Western popular cultures since the 19th century, and that is exactly why general public today tend to criticize the cuteness culture. On the other hand, the cuteness culture itself has been shown that it has always been closely related the changes in general population’s psychology, taste, aesthetic consciousness and consumption culture. Thus such topic already expand into and belongs to the field of Economic Sociology, ethnography method alone can no longer produce convincing research results since cuteness culture are highly associated with the nature of
Individual Essay
Hoi Chung Fok (James) 44677472
Due Date: 20rd November, 2015
Word Count (include references):1653
Cuteness and Kawaii essentially means childlike; it celebrates sweet, adorable, innocent, pure, simple, genuine, gentle, vulnerable, weak and inexperienced social behavior and physical appearance. (Kinsella, 1995) The word Kawaii was first appeared in the book - Konjaku Monogatari Shyu in the 12 century Heian period (Heian Jidai) Japan. Up until the early Edo period (Edo Jidai), the negative sense of Kawaii faded away, position emotional implications such as “Sympathetic” “likeable” became the mainstream, and the word Kawaii began to borrow Chinese Character …show more content…
In 2004, Harvard University has held the “Cute Culture in Japan” seminar for the first time in Harvard history, it aimed to not only explore the expression of cuteness culture in Japan, but also discussed its social impact. In addition, Belson and Bremner (2003) analyzing the process of commercialization and globalization of the Hello Kitty merchandise in order to investigate the origin of contemporary Japanese popular culture – cuteness (kawaii) culture. European and American scholars has its own unique insights on Japanese cuteness culture (Kawaii Bunka) and they also refer it as symbolic icon of the formation of Japanese Consumer Society, an important indicator on observing and analyzing social changes in contemporary Japanese society. Unfortunately, due to the excessive emphasis on the characteristic of the cuteness culture itself, general public as well as the scholars tended to ignore the process of origin, development and popularization of the cuteness culture, thus no different with any of the Western popular cultures since the 19th century, and that is exactly why general public today tend to criticize the cuteness culture. On the other hand, the cuteness culture itself has been shown that it has always been closely related the changes in general population’s psychology, taste, aesthetic consciousness and consumption culture. Thus such topic already expand into and belongs to the field of Economic Sociology, ethnography method alone can no longer produce convincing research results since cuteness culture are highly associated with the nature of