CUTE CULTURE: THE 'KAWAII' TREND IN JAPANESE CULTURE

The authoress analyses the cute / sweet trend of 'kawaii' in present-day Japanese culture. She presents its birth in the teen girl subculture of perfect consumers, its evolution and characteristic features based on such characters as Hello Kitty and Godzilla/Minilla. She argues that the sweetness of the 'kawaii' heroes is derived from the war trauma of Japanese culture in which there was no room for the 'incredible' dead. She argues, in line with Norihiro Kato, that whatever is threatening - i.e. the 'incredibleness' - has been 'kawaiised'/minaturised. She also shows the birth of historic awareness in Japanese neo pop art, which turns cuties into a post-colonial tool of criticism.