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“Cuteness Studies and Japan” the Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture (2020) Eds “Cuteness Studies and Japan” The Routledge Companion to Gender and Japanese Culture (2020) Eds. Coates, J., Fraser, L and Pendleton, M. Joshua Paul Dale Tokyo Gakugei University (Draft copy: please cite published version) Kawaii, Cute, Cuteness Kawaii and cute are increasingly prominent aesthetics in contemporary global culture. While Japan’s kawaii boom arguably began in the 1970s (Kinsella 1995: 220), it wasn’t until the late 20th/early 21st century that cuteness began to explode worldwide as the number of cute images, commodities, foods, fashions, and fandoms underwent rapid expansion (Dale 2017: 1). The new field of cuteness studies, formed to address this phenomenon, analyzes not only its history and development, but also the connection between cuteness and gender, race, ethnicity, age, nationality, politics, and interspecies affiliations. Its aim is to take seriously what is often dismissed as a facile commodity aesthetic because of its gendered association with femininity, childhood and the domestic sphere (Dale 2017: 2; Ngai 2012: 3). Until recently, the study of kawaii was primarily concerned with how this aesthetic emerged and propagated in Japan. Now, cuteness studies as a whole is taking on an expanding number of themes and concerns. Both the “Cute Studies” issue of the East Asian Journal of Popular Culture (2016), and the edited volume The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness (2017) place the kawaii and cute aesthetics within the framework of cuteness affect by considering cultures of emotion as well as commodity consumption. An issue of M/C Journal (2014) explores both aesthetics within the digital realm, while The Retrofuturism of Cuteness (2017) takes on the fascinating project of exploring the viability of reading cuteness into historical periods prior to the aesthetic’s—and the word’s—existence. Simon May’s The Power of Cute Joshua Paul Dale 1 makes the case that cute and kawaii are key aesthetics to explain the current Zeitgeist. My own forthcoming book explores the origins of cuteness deep in our evolutionary past and traces the development of both the cute and kawaii aesthetics up to the present day. Thus Cuteness Studies challenges conventional ways of thinking about time and geographical space, as well as gendered subjectivities, by analyzing both the cute and kawaii aesthetics while also considering the common affect that underlies them. The influence of Japanese kawaii on the global popularity of cuteness is growing rapidly. Scholarly works such as Christine Yano’s Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek across the Pacific attest to the importance of kawaii as a form of soft power that negotiates both within and beyond national and ethnic identities in a globalized consumer market. Yet scholars sometimes fail to see the differences between Japanese kawaii and other cute aesthetics (Ngai 2012: 78, Plourde 2016: 7). In this chapter, I contend that the aesthetic of cute is rooted in the etymology of the English word in a way that positions it in opposition to kawaii. This fundamental difference makes it difficult for those steeped in cute to understand kawaii, and vice versa. It also means that critical insights gained from the study of one aesthetic may become valuable tools for analyzing the other. This chapter employs the word “cuteness” to indicate the affective reaction felt when a subject finds an object to be cute or kawaii. In addition to the scholarship in cultural and media studies outlined above, there is a burgeoning amount of research in the physical and behavioural sciences on this affect. Empirical methods of data collection employed in over fifty years of scientific study range from simple surveys to increasingly sophisticated ways of tracking the body’s physical reactions to cuteness. fMRI and MEG brain scan studies of subjects exposed to images of babies Joshua Paul Dale 2 manipulated to show high levels of cuteness revealed significant activity in the reward centers of the brain (Glocker 2009; Kringelbach 2008). Taken as a whole, this body of scholarship indicates that the cuteness response has its origins in the evolution of Homo sapiens. Our ability to feel cuteness may be based in an evolutionary mechanism brought about by natural selection, but there are important cultural components to the aesthetics that have developed around this affect. Starting in childhood, experience and learning drawn from family and friends as well as media representations become the foundations of the disparate aesthetics of cute and kawaii. Seen in this light, the evolutionary origin of the cuteness response provides a starting point: a common ground from which to elucidate the cultural differences at work in the way this emotion is stimulated, expressed and communicated. The most fundamental of these differences lies in the etymology of “cute” and “kawaii,” so this is where I begin. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “cute,” a shortened form of “acute,” may also mean “clever or cunning.” Accordingly, native English speakers are apt to view cute objects or people as inherently manipulative (Ngai 2012: 86). On the other hand, though the dictionary definition of kawaii still includes “pitiable” among its meanings, in modern usage the word has lost all negative associations: kawaii is an affective adjective that simply expresses the feeling of cuteness (Nittono 2016: 81; Yomota 2006: 73). Thus, while “Don’t be cute!” is a common admonition in American English, there is no equivalent phrase in Japanese using the word kawaii. One may say “don’t be childish” in Japanese, but “don’t be cute” has no direct translation. This difference has profound effects. In this chapter, I outline the history and development of kawaii in Japan to ascertain why this gendered aesthetic originally Joshua Paul Dale 3 associated with children, girls and women has spread to so many areas of contemporary Japanese culture, and investigate the social implications of its popularity on both women and men. Turning to the scholarship on the cute aesthetic, I examine how its secondary meaning of clever has caused many scholars to locate negative affects, from despair and abjection to sadism and violence, at the heart of this seemingly benign aesthetic. Finally, I propose that kawaii culture—still driven by, but no longer solely associated with, Japanese girls and women—may provide an alternative viewpoint that would benefit scholarship on the cute aesthetic. History and Development of the Kawaii Aesthetic Like the English cute, the word kawaii did not enter common usage until the late 19th/early 20th century. However, cuteness has been expressed in Japanese literature and art for almost a thousand years, and its deepest origins lie in Japanese women’s culture. The Pillow Book (Makura no Sōshi), completed by court attendant Sei Shonagon in 1002, includes objects and behaviors now called kawaii in her list of beautiful (utsukushii) things. These include young children in ceremonial costumes and small things in general, plus interactions with baby birds and children (Shirane 2007: 277). The word kawaii derives from kawahayushi, which first appeared in the Anthology of Tales from the Past (Konjaku Monogatarishū) from the late Heian period (late 12th century). Literally “face dazzled,” it meant ashamed, describing the case when one’s face flushes due to a guilty conscience; even today characters in manga and anime are drawn with reddened cheeks to indicate they are feeling kawaii, and this blushing reaction occurs in people as well (Esposito 2014).. This word evolved into kawayui over the next few hundred years, and the meaning shifted to pitiful or vulnerable. Yomota Inuhiko traces the first appearance of the (proto) word Joshua Paul Dale 4 kawaii to 1603, when the word “cauaij” appeared in a Japanese to Portuguese dictionary compiled by the Society of Jesuits in Nagasaki (34). At that time the Japanese word was kawairashii (kahayurashi) (Yomota 2006: 29-36). The modern meaning of kawaii is expressed by this word as early as 1686 in the novel The Life of an Amorous Woman (Kōshoku Ichidai Onna) (Yomota 2006: 34). By the late Edo era, the connotation of pity disappeared and kawaii attained its present meaning: a sense of love or affection, especially but not exclusively felt for small, vulnerable things such as children and animals (Nittono 2016: 81). The explosion of printmaking (ukiyoe) in the Edo period (1603-1868) included many artists whose works are perceived as kawaii today. The mid-Edo period saw the publication of albums of comic pictures (toba ehon) by Ōka Shunboku, Hasegawa Mitsunobu, and others. Considered a forerunner of modern manga, many of the drawings they contain are cute as well as funny (Shimizu 2013: 16). Several recent exhibitions have collected works that showcase the development of kawaii in the visual arts throughout the Edo period. The exhibited works may be seen in several published catalogs (Fuchu Art Museum 2013; Hinohara 2017; Takahashi 2014). A two-part exhibit at the Fuchu Art Museum in 2013 divided kawaii artworks into several areas. These included: works that evoke emotional qualities such as pitiable, kenage (admiration for something small trying its best despite its diminutive size), funny, pure/innocent and small/alone; general principles such as geometry of form, minimalist techniques and reiteration; childlike forms; and qualities such as the charms of awkwardness and naivety. This exhibition was intended to define and display the precepts of kawaii as they gradually emerged in Japanese art. Joshua Paul Dale 5 FIGURE 1: This late 18thc. work by Nagasawa Rosetsu in the Ōkyo style depicts the spirit of a frolicking puppy by employing body deformation and a stylized outline: techniques later found in manga. Courtesy of Homma Museum of Art. The exhibition was quite popular, and I found the visiting crowd engaged in continual discussion about whether particular works were or were not kawaii. Going forward from the Edo period to the twentieth century requires consideration of the shōjo (adolescent girls), who would become the first mass market for kawaii goods and images.
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