cuteness

, in Japan, is associated with powerlessness and with the world of females weakness, femininity, cheerfulness, bright colors, infants, children, youth, light-heartedness, outgoingness, smallness.

Japan

Japanese culture

, in Japan, is used also by authority (i.e. with non-threatening cartoons) to persuade, warn and admonish is quite conspicuous.

The use of cuteness to persuade, warn and admonish is quite conspicuous. From the warning signs of construction sites, public service announcements, to materials put out by the government on health-related matters, warnings from authorities are softened and made more acceptable to the general public. Japan Railways uses posters with a picture of the Rika doll (the less sexualized Japanese sister to the Barbie doll) to campaign for better etiquette on trains and in train stations. In one poster, Rika is portrayed holding a cellular phone that is as big as she is, thereby making her look cuter. It is not uncommon to see danger signs posted near lakes and ponds with colorful cartoon figures thrashing about in the water, or posters with comic book characters being knocked down by speeding cars.

persuasion

, in Japan, is characterized by a desire to be liked, by a vulnerability related to this desire.

Note what a certain Dr Takasu has to say, who has some definite ideas on the archetypical image of cuteness. In his The Magnetism of the Heart ' Becoming A Cute Woman: Mesmer Explains the 5 Rules for Becoming a Good Woman, he writes that cuteness has three basic principles. The first is having features of an infant, such as a wide forehead, small chin, big eyes, low nose, small lips and white skin. Here it might be added that the portrayal of girls and women in manga (comics) is notable because often they have excessively large, round eyes with bright expressions that kira kira suru (glitter). One observer notes how there is a trend to reshape people 'to conform to the cuter, cuddlier specifications of cartoon characters' in order to make them appear in print media as figures in manga. 'The most blatant such example is a trend of chopping off the heads of prominent celebrities and then superimposing them in much larger size, thus creating the same basic anatomical dimensions as a typical comic-book creation' (Lazarus 1994b). The second is an ability to arouse the protective instinct in others. The third is the desire of a cute person to want to be liked. This, according to Dr Takasa, is accomplished by expressing weakness (1988: 35'6).

desire

passivity

vulnerability

, in Japan, is characterized by an ability to arouse the protective instinct in others.

is characterized in Japan as having features of an infant.

infantilism

, in Japan, is often expressed with animals because animals seem to require loving attention from people; they need to be protected, cuddled and held.

Why the use of animals in the cultural discourse on cuteness? For one thing, they seem to require loving attention from people. As one young girl once told me, they need to be 'protected, cuddled and held'.

is often used in Japan as a way of obtaining favors and attention from those above one.

cute toward those above is often a way of obtaining favors and attention, while displaying cuteness to one's subordinates is a method of appearing non-threatening, thereby gaining their confidence, and perhaps more cynically, control over them.

hierarchy

influence

manipulation

, in Japan, is used to soften superior/inferior relations in Japan, which is not to say to 'weaken', rather by softening these relations through cuteness, the lines of power are reinforced, emotionally charged as they are with positive feelings of loyalty and commitment.

In Japanese society vertical relations, such as k'hai/sempai (junior/senior) and seito/sensei (student/master), are extremely important, forming the basic social structural constituents from which Japanese build their social world (cf. Nakane 1970). The sentiment of cuteness, I believe, is used to soften these superior/inferior relations. However, by 'softening' I do not mean that the vertical lines of control are weakened; on the contrary, the lines of power are reinforced since they become emotionally charged with positive feelings of loyalty and commitment.

cuteness, n.All

cuteness