TOKYO -- Cute is cool in Japan. Look anywhere and everywhere: Cartoon figures dangle from cell phones, waitresses bow in frilly maid outfits, cherries and bows adorn bags, even police departments ...

Cute is cool in Japan. Look anywhere and everywhere: Cartoon figures dangle from cell phones, waitresses bow in frilly maid outfits, cherries and bows adorn bags, even police departments boast cuddly ...

All I can hear in my mind is Japanese teenagers (mostly girls) giggling and pointing at how cute Line’s new icons and skins are in the Android launcher that the company just announced today — called ...

This year has been anything but cute. It’s been occasionally optimistic, but mostly unpredictable, tumultuous, and painful. But cute? Far from it. Enter the timeline cleanse. You may have seen them: ...

So goes the unspoken mantra for Hello Kitty, one of global pop culture's most successful, most ubiquitous and, after three decades, most durable brands. For Japan's Sanrio Company Ltd., the worldwide ...

Hamsters’ butts are all the rage in Japan. The furry creatures and their plush rear ends are the latest item to make it onto Japanese pop culture’s ever-expanding list of things that are “kawaii” or ...

Comedy, slice-of-life, sports, or an adventure, this trope has a focus on a mostly, if not all, cute female cast doing various activities, even those considered mundane, in a cute way. “Cute Girls ...

Another weekend. Another photo session for 21-year-old Mai Fujiko, no stranger to string bikinis that are more string than bikini. She wasn’t embarrassed in the least, proud of the figure DNA bestowed ...

Cute—"Kawaii" in local parlance—wears many guises in Japan. There's old-school kawaii, embodied by the helpless, mouthless gaze of Hello Kitty. There's the newer guy-cute, manifest by masses of young ...