Culture Industry and the Diversity of Kawaii Culture: Characters: Hello Kitty and Kumamon

Abstract

This paper provides information and fundamental knowledge of Kawaii (cute) culture, which is a part of the pop culture in Japan, which has a long historical background. The Kawaii culture has been transformed by the changes of society, time and people, which became the diversity of Kawaii. Thus there is still no reason apparent as to why the diversity of Kawaii had occurred in Japan. The objective of this study was to explore the causes of the diversity development in the Kawaii culture by examining academic documents and other materials, including comics, films and web-sites. In addition, the research mainly focused on the Kawaii culture from the 1960s to the present.

The study showed that the transformations of the Kawaii culture were led by the changes of Japanese society, industries, and governmental policies after World War II. The concept of Kawaii culture were transformed into products in various forms to respond to the consumers’ needs. Additionally, Kawaii culture was expanded to cultural products, by the Japanese government. It was linked to tourism which is related to the localism value, so Kawaii culture became the towns’ symbols. And after linking into the various assorted cultures, then came the diversity of Kawaii culture.  Additionally, exportation of the Kawaii products to other countries, created the assimilation between Kawaii culture and foreign culture, which finally led to differentiation and diversity of Kawaii.