Hello Kitty turns 50 on Friday. Befitting a pop icon at midlife, the bubble-headed, bow-wearing character's fictional birthday has brought museum exhibits, a theme park spectacle and a national tour.

"Gross" characters are proliferating in a country known for kawaii, and now even local governments' mascots are trying to out-weird one another. Long considered the global capital of cute, Japan is ...

Providing an in-depth overview of all things kawaii (cute), this book traces the cute aesthetic from its inception in the 1970s as a schoolgirl trend to its position as a leading cultural norm, and ...

All images courtesy of Two Kids and a Coupon Get ready for a burst of sweetness and a dose of adorable with our new ...

TOKYO (AP) — Hello Kitty turns 50 on Friday. Befitting a pop icon at midlife, the bubble-headed, bow-wearing character’s fictional birthday has brought museum exhibits, a theme park spectacle and a ...

Hiroshi Nittono receives funding from The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI No. 23330217. However, why cute things attract us and how they ...

“I don’t think it’s to appear to be healthy, it’s purely a style statement,” Tokyo-based French fashion designer Julien David said of activewear’s rise in the country. “The biggest shift in Kawaii is ...

What is cute, or kawaii, to use the almost synonymous Japanese term? In 1943, an Austrian zoologist named Konrad Lorenz proposed that our perception of cuteness is based on certain physical ...