Japan is a birthplace of advanced technology, high-speed trains, samurais, kabuki, and kawaii. It is a Japanese word that means "pretty", "pretty", "charming". This subjective definition means "cute," "nice," "pretty." It may be attributed to any object, which an individual will consider kawaii, or, in other words, cute.

Kawaii: Made in Japan, 16.03.2010
Lola Abduhametova // AKIpress, CA-News

Kawaii became popular as an aspect of Japanese culture, entertainment, clothing, toys, appearance, style of behavior and manners, in 70s of the last century. This cultural phenomenon attracts interest of foreign observers, because it is applied regardless of gender, age and image that may seem frivolous or immature for "outsiders."

Akihabara, Tokyo's discount electronics store district, is kind of a "promised land" of kawaii and related cultural phenomena. Previously, Akihabara was known as "electronic town." It remains such, but gradually blocks of shops and electronic products are giving way to shops and cafes related to anime and manga.

Anime" comes from English word "animation" and is used to refer to Japanese animation movies. Animation movies in other countries are designed more for children, but Japanese anime is designed generally for teenagers and adults.

Experts in the field of anime use this as an explanation to growing popularity of Japanese anime around the world. Anime scenes differ in number of characters, variety of places and time of action, styles and genres.

Sources for most anime are manga - Japanese comics. The word "manga" in translation from Japanese literally means "funny pictures." Manga were created by Japanese artists in late XVIII - early XIX centuries, who released their works under this title.

This phenomenon caused a boom in Japanese book-publishing industry in 1950s and since then has been successfully developing and spreading all over the world. As well as anime, manga differ in great diversity of subjects, themes and characters. There are series for children, but stories for older generations dominate.

People obsessed with anime and manga are called "otaku" in Japan, which means a fan. Fans of anime and manga (mainly teenagers and young adults over 20, as they call themselves) have freedom of action and a great variety of goods. Akihabara shops have everything fans would need including, games, toys, and outfit of favorite characters. However, the greatest demand is for T-shirts with images of anime characters, said Tatsunari Namai, 25-year-old seller of one of the largest stores of anime goods.

Not only otaku shop in such stores, who comprise 30% of all clients, but also foreigners and other Janapese citizens, who are not fans. Competition issues are solved by offering products not available in other stores.

Former Prime Minister Taro Aso was also otaku. He was fascinated by Japanese manga comics since childhood. He believes that Japanese pop culture can act as an important link with other parts of the world.

Otaku are not limited to watching movies and shopping. They wear costumes of favorite characters and meet with the same reincarnated friends. Such actions are called cosplay - abbreviation from costume play. In addition, twice a year Tokyo holds international festival of anime - in August and December. 650 thousand people participated at the last anime festival.  

I can not judge if aesthetics of kawaii and subculture of anime and manga can be considered childlike passion or not, but people, who are conservative and more mature, perceive these phenomena as an objective reality. Moreover, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, which enjoys great prestige in the country, send three ambassadors of kawaii (very nice girls) to the cosplay festival in Paris and another two ambassadors to a similar event in Bangkok.

Much earlier, Japan had won world popularity by brands such as Sony, Panasonic, Toyota and many other brands. People eat sushi and sashimi all over the world. Maybe it's time for a gradual "globalization" of the new kawaii phenomenon, which originated in Japan.


Note: This material was prepared in the course of training programs for young journalists from Central Asia in Tokyo, with the support of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.