From Sanrio characters to starry-eyed idol singers, it’s no secret that kawaii (“cute”) culture is huge in Japan. Whole museums and theme parks have been dedicated to the concept of kawaii. Heck, it’s ...

It’s hard to tell at first glance, but Hello Kitty is…well, she’s a lot of things. A mouthless blob. Not a cat, nor Japanese—she’s a girl from the leafy London suburbs, a perpetual third grader, five ...

Over on question-and-answer website Quora, someone posted a very simple question: Which is the cutest cartoon character ever created? The answers from Quora members cover a broad spectrum, some more ...

"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 ...

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 ...

Editor’s Note: Joshua Paul Dale is a professor at Tokyo Gakugei University. He is co-editor of “The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness”, and the editor of “Cute Studies,” a special issue of the East ...

All images courtesy of Two Kids and a Coupon Do you love the cuteness of kawaii? These fun and friendly drawings have fun ...

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or ...

You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. I have a theory I bore people with at dinner parties called the "Googly Eye Effect". It ...