Portland Book Review

Just found this, it was reviewed a while ago. It is great to find all these excellent book related websites. 

Thank you so much Portland Book review.  
m(_  _)m


All Things Cute and How They Dominate Japan

By Manami Okazaki & Geoff Johnson
Prestel, $24.95, 224 pages
This in-depth look at Japanese cute culture addresses a plethora of perspectives on the subject. Supported through examples from food to fashion and everything in between, it features the lesser known aspects of the kawaii following. Breaking up the book into sections makes the impact of cuteness on different areas of culture much more powerful. With interviews and evidence, this seems to be the all inclusive guide to understanding the evolution of cute in Japanese culture.

“Kawaii does, of course, have a lot to do with aesthetics, but it also reflects changes in social structures and the role of women, the rise and fall of the economy and a sense of national identity.”

The organization of text with supporting images provided a well rounded and strong support for the points of view expressed. Images are important and connect perfectly with the text to provide a complete panorama. There is no doubt that kawaii culture has touched every aspect of Japanese living and has quite the evolving history. Easy readability makes this a well organized book. Although some sections might have been better grouped together due to short length, the separate sections flowed into one another well for the most part. The inclusion of interviews supplies different perspectives and makes this sound like a reliable and very colorful work of art.
Reviewed by Isabel Hernandez

Wink books is this awesome blog that profiles a new book a day, to celebrate their love of print.  Super happy to find kawaii on there. 

About Wink books: 

Books are not dead! The newest thing in the digital age are solid paper books. Not all books deserve to be printed on paper, but some books do, and these are the books that Wink celebrates. Every weekday Wink reviews one remarkable book that demonstrates what paper books can do. 

The exquisite subtlety of traditional Japanese art and design is 
legendary. But on top of that subtlety, the Japanese have an odd 
affection for the aggressively cute. Cute as in Hello Kitty, anime 
manga, pulsating TV game show graphics, wide-eye-popping color packing 
and over-the-top cosplay costumes; the kind of extreme poptomistic 
cuteness that outsiders either find head-scratching ridiculous, or 
completely captivating. I’m in the latter camp and find myself delighted
 and made happy by the explosive sensibility of Japanese cuteness. Here 
is a mighty fine catalog of the full range of “kawaii” – or cuteness – 
in Japanese food, maps, fashion, toys, and love, and a bit of how it 
came to reign in Japan. – Kevin Kelly 

riarumi

Did an interview for riarumi, a website that looks at females in whatever industry they might happen to work in. I really don't see myself as a "female journalist" it's not the main issue I align myself with, but I guess because of the things I choose to write about, I am constantly around really awesome Japanese female creative industry people, and I've been lucky to meet a ton of amazing chicks. Most of the models in my books are also people with their own careers asides from modelling.
At least half the kawaii book features girls/ women who celebrate femininity and  channel that energy into something creative and fun; whether they be fashion designers, illustrators, stylists, MUAs, graphic designers, artists etc. anyways the rest of the interview is on their site, the pic is from Tunisia post "Arab Spring" (I realise a lot of ppl don't dig that title) when I was interviewing El General!

thanks Sam for dropping me a line, good luck with the site! xxx

the Debrief

I did an interview for the Debrief a while back on kawaii culture. 

They got my name wrong, and said I write for the "Japanese" Times (!) but... anyways! 

Thought it was interesting they linked kawaii culture to the tsunami as I felt that most subcultures took a huge hit, a lot of youth cultures went on hiatus, and people in general felt guilty about having fun. If anything, rather than being outgoing, it was more like the "MUJI life," and young people reassessing what how they consumed, living modestly on a small scale,  and things like this.

 It took forever to recover -- it has only been recently that Tokyo's youth has it's energy back and shook off the general melancholy (if at all, and certainly not on the scale of before the tsunami). Considering a lot of my work is based on subcultures, I am really fortunate to have been really involved in many subcultures the last decade before 3/11.

 I won't go into the nationalism here, but those folks are as far removed from these kinds of pop/ creative street cultures as you can get (imo), and comes from a completely different place (similar to skins in Greece and Spain, adversities create a kind of negativity)  

You do see more cultural pride in the downtown/ Asakusa region youth culture (matsuri festivals, "Edo-kko" machismo, artisans, working class chic,  etc. etc. ) where traditional, or should I say, Edo based culture is lauded, even with young people, but real right wing nationalists are a bit of a nut-case genre of their own.

Still, interesting read and thank you for including me in your report!  m(_  _)m 

Interesting to read other people's interpretations on this, I saw they also interviewed a photographer, Thomas Card who made this quite jumbo sized photo book with Tokyo street culture kids in a white studio. It is beautiful book, and offers something different to the head-to-toe style street snap style that Fruits owns, and does best. 

thanks Debrief for dropping me a line xxx

 

Hiraga Teruyuki exhibition

From 6/13 to 15 there is a Hiraga Teruyuki kokeshi exhibition, he is from Sakunami and did the kokeshi that is on the cover of my book!
The address is:
2-4-10 Negishi, Taito-ku, Tokyo
It is REALLY hard to get genuine kokeshi in Tokyo so it is a great opportunity to pick up some of these one-of-a-kind beauties.

Kumamiki

Shot Kumamiki for a new book on kimonos -- she mentioned she has is video blogging now, check it out! Always sooooo sweet, she is a walking, real life version of the kawaii book and she is really in the center of that culture.
PS she is also making yukata (summer kimonos), I love talented girls :)))
https://www.youtube.com/user/kumamikicraft

LA

LA was super hectic, but met so many people it was really quite incredible and managed to squeeze in some work for my kimono book too and meet some LA kawaii peeps.
Thank you so much to Aaron, Gabriel and Dory from SCB, Greg Kimura and Elizabeth from the Japanese American Museum, Yoko from the Japan Foundation, Sherry from Kinokuniya and all the people who bought books and came to my talk.
Everyone was super super friendly at the talk which was SO nice! I can't thank you enough for coming to the talk and buying books,  I am so so so so soooo  grateful!

Got a mega vitamin D dose at the LA TImes book fair, LA weather lived up to its reputation. I have never done a US book fair so it was nice to see that print is far from dead.

So many people asked about my kimono - it is from Denim Dosu in Kyoto, I can wear it with converse, throw it in the wash, iron it, it is made from premium denim and it folds well -- i.e. it is easy to put on. It has pink stitching. The han eri (collar) is pink and stitched with birds, it is from Wakitsch. I am in the middle of compiling a stack of interesting designers for my next book if you want to see more:
http://kimononow.blogspot.jp/

I think as many people wanted to talk about kimono as the books! :) Some photos at the Japan Foundation pop up exhibition (my suitcase was like a BRICK) and the book fair: