An interview from
Kawaii, the culture of Cute is on Time Out Tokyo with Ms Nakamura from the Yayoi Yumeji Museum. I think it is the best interview in the book and the Yayoi Yumeji Museum is a gem, didnt know about it before writing this book but their shows are really great (one on now is on demonic women!)
Thanks to my lovely publishers for letting TTO run it, and thanks to James xxxx
Scroll down to read, enjoy!
Illustration by Rune Naito. Photo: Geoff Johnson
Posted: Thu Jun 27 2013
Anyone with even the slightest interest in modern Japanese
culture will probably have stumbled across the term ‘kawaii’ by now.
Though it roughly translates as ‘cute’ in English, it's a concept that
seems to encapsulate so much more than that: from the fashionable
streets of Harajuku to the big-eyed mascots that watch over Tokyo's
wards, it's practically inescapable. As Manami Okazaki writes in a new
book on the subject: ‘You are just as likely to hear a table, car,
building, doughnut or plane referred to as kawaii – and in Japan, quite
often, the most banal things
are cute.’ In
Kawaii! Japan's Culture of Cute
(Prestel), Okazaki and photographer Geoff Johnson explore the
phenomenon from its simple origins right up to its modern day
manifestations of sweet sweets, cutesy cosplay and kimono-wearing cats,
stopping along the way for interviews with the likes of
FRUiTS
editor Shoichi Aoki, Gloomy creator Mori Chack and Goth-loli model Rin
Rin. In this exclusive extract, Keiko Nakahara, curator of Tokyo's
Yayoi-Yumeji Museum, delves back to when the trend first started a
century ago...
Kurumi-chan illustration by manga artist Katsuji Matsumoto.
Keiko Nakamura, curator, Yayoi-Yumeji Museum
In Japan, there are kawaii items everywhere you look. Any product
you can think of has a kawaii equivalent waiting coquettishly in its box
for a cute-obsessed customer to come along and take it home. Where does
this culture come from? The Yayoi-Yumeji Museum,
which is made up of two spaces, the Yayoi Museum and Takehisa Yumeji
Museum, is dedicated to girls' magazine illustrators. It hosts many
exhibitions each year, with the goal of promoting knowledge about
kawaii's rich history.
What does kawaii mean exactly?
It is the appeal of adolescence, when one is not yet an adult. Kawaii
things are usually soft, bright, round and small. They aren’t aggressive
or belligerent, they give you peace of mind and a sense of security.
Originally, the word was used to describe people who were beneath you.
It was acceptable to use it when referring to objects, but you wouldn't
use it for your superiors or schoolmates. But since the mid-'80s girls
have generally preferred to be called kawaii rather than pretty.
What are the historical roots of kawaii culture?
I consider 1914 the birth year of kawaii in Japan. That's when
illustrator Yumeji Takehisa opened a shop in Nihonbashi that sold
numerous goods aimed at schoolgirls – what we now refer to as 'fancy
goods'. Items that were desirable at the time included woodblock prints,
embroidery, cards, illustrated books, umbrellas, dolls and kimono
collars. Up until then, there hadn't really been any shops that were
aimed at a particular clientele based on age or gender, but the
customers of this store were mostly young women. At the time, of course,
they weren’t using the term 'fancy goods', but
komamono.
Takehisa
was influenced by foreign cultures, and his goods showed an aesthetic
meeting of East and West. For example, he designed coloured paper that
he decorated with drawings of poisonous mushrooms. At the time, in
Japan, that wasn't done, but in the West in the early 1900s poisonous
mushrooms appeared on cards or in illustrated books. He also designed
chiyogami paper with motifs such as umbrellas and matchsticks (
pictured). At the time,
chiyogami was usually printed with traditional
yuzen
patterns, so his thinking was very innovative and a lot of people came
to copy him. Takehisa placed importance on the cuteness of his designs
and referred to them as kawaii. However, this is a rare example of the
word being used at the time, as it wasn't a commonly used word, as it is
now.
Takehisa was seen as an innovator: he had a real talent for doing
things no one was doing and making them popular. For example, he would
embroider strawberries or flowers into kimono collars. The kimono itself
was really drab at the time, so
haneri collars were really
important. Nowadays, these collars are white, but back then they were
the focal point of the kimono, and they were made to be as conspicuous
as possible. The orthodox motifs were chrysanthemums or sakura – things
such as strawberries were totally unheard of and people were astounded.
How have Japanese notions of beauty changed over time?
If you compare the work of Takehisa and the painter Ryushi Kawabata,
their notions of what constitutes beauty are very different. Takehisa’s
illustrations look cute in comparison to Kawabata’s work because there
is a roundness to them – especially the eyes. Kawabata paints eyes in
the shape that is common in Japanese classical painting; having small
eyes and a slender physique was considered to be the ideal. Round eyes
were traditionally seen as vulgar, although the ideal changed with
foreign contact. Artists began to follow Takehisa’s style, and one of
these was Junichi Nakahara, who drew eyes very large. He introduced the
idea that girls on paper didn't have to replicate reality.
The Great Kanto earthquake happened in 1923, and Tokyo was
obliterated. From that time, Takehisa’s popularity declined and various
designers became prominent, although at the time they weren’t called
designers – they were called
zuanka, and were all influenced by
Takehisa. Kaichi Kobayashi, from Kyoto, who draws quite mature looking
images, was one of these designers. He made envelopes and letter paper
for schoolgirls.
What were these letter sets used for?
They were becoming increasingly important items for schoolgirls. Before
the Taisho era [1912-26], girls went to elementary school and then got
married or went to work, but during this period more girls continued
their education. They were generally from upper middle-class families
and had a lot of spare time, which they spent writing letters. Meeting
up with boys was strictly forbidden at girls' schools, so they would
play games where they would write love letters to their classmates
instead, or to girls they looked up to or thought were cute – almost
every day! At the time, of course, there was no internet, so letter sets
became very important and were the hit item of the era.
Playing cards by manga artist Katsuji Matsumoto.
People who followed directly from Takehisa's trend included artists
such as Nakahara, who opened a goods shop called Himawariya [sunflower],
and Katsuji Matsumoto, who was active from the beginning of the Showa
era [1926-89]. Matsumoto is thought to be the originator of
shojo manga in Japan, and
Kurukuru Kurumi-chan the first example of it. The protagonist, Kurumi-chan, is considered the first character icon. There were Kurumi-chan
kisekai
dolls [dress-up paper dolls] and stickers, as well as postcards that
were meant to encourage troops during the war. The story itself is
really quite simple: Kurumi is a five-year-old who is always merry, and
hence loveable. It is uncomplicated, and audiences today might wonder
why it was so popular.
In the ’50s and ’60s a lot of fancy goods came on the market as
Japan’s economy grew. There were improvements in raw materials and
technological advances. Directly after the war there was a baby boom,
and, as these babies grew up to be teenagers, the market for goods aimed
at this age group increased.
Rune Naito’s name comes up a lot in reference to kawaii culture. How influential is his work?
He popularised the word 'kawaii’. When you look at his drawings, the
ratio of body length to the size of the head suggests the proportions of
a very little girl. The facial features are those of a newborn baby,
with a large, round head. The distance from the hairline to the eyebrows
is really long, giving the face a large forehead, and the nose and
mouth are really small. His work was initially seen as a bit weird, but
became very popular.
Prior to this era, Japanese women had to mature and become adults
quickly because poverty was rampant, and people were encouraged to have a
lot of children to provide a labour force and recruits for the army. In
fact, it was common for families to have between seven and ten kids.
When the men went to war, the women had to work. In the mid-1950s the
guys went back to work and the girls didn't have to grow up so fast.
Handkerchiefs designed by Rune Naito.
When did seminal shojo manga artists come into the picture?
Artists such as Masako Watanabe and Macoto Takahashi, who drew gorgeous,
opulent images, became the most influential people in terms of
manufacturing goods. Ado Mizumori was also hugely influential,
separating her work from its predecessors by adding a touch of eroticism
to the cuteness. For example, her characters had large, round bottoms
and appeared in kissing scenes. You could say this was the beginning of
ero-kawaii [erotic cute]. From there, the notion of kawaii branched off in different directions, including
kimo-kawaii,
shibu-kawaii, and
otona-kawaii. Perhaps it's because of these sub genres that Japan didn’t grow bored of the notion of kawaii and it continues today.
How did Sanrio goods become explosively popular?
From the mid-’60s to the ’70s, manga such as
Candy Candy and
Sailor Moon
were very important, as were dolls such as Licca-chan. In the ’80s,
Tokyo Disneyland opened and sold many goods, making it common for
everyone to have at least one Disney item in their house. The birth of
Hello Kitty in 1974 was a landmark event too. Though Sanrio had been
around previously, selling strawberry-themed goods or Ado Mizumori
products, nothing came close to the Hello Kitty boom.
Why were so many goods produced during this time?
This was connected to the oil and dollar crisis [due to the 1973 Arab
oil embargo]. Up until then, the general goods industry had been aimed
at exports to America, but because of the economic climate of the time
they had to focus on the domestic market instead. The success of Hello
Kitty led to the realisation that if you made something cute, it would
sell. As a result, various companies jumped on the goods-manufacturing
bandwagon.
When the economic bubble burst, Japanese people had less disposable
income and wanted to buy inexpensive things, so 100-yen shops started
up. A lot of fancy goods came to be manufactured just for this market,
and, because of this, they came to be seen as kitsch and cheap. Before
this generation, it was upper-class girls who had bought kawaii, but now
everyone could have inexpensive fancy goods. At one point the industry
even wanted to rebrand them 'variety goods', but, unsurprisingly, that
idea didn't take off. Since then, there has been a stream of hit
characters, such as Tarepanda from San-X, and similar companies continue
to make more and more kawaii items.
