Category: kawaii

Much has been made of kawaii when it comes to the types of images imported globally alleged to fetishize Japanese and Asian women as nubile objects for the Western male gaze. Or worse — that kawaii spreads the idea that the whole of Asia is infantile and imitative, made up of insufficiently masculine men who can’t even handle their tiny little women, thus needing big, hairy white guys to model for them the proper way to effectively rule the world.

Luckily, this is overstating the issue, but I think the ideological implications exist somewhere in at least a few Western minds. Apparently, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is not too concerned with perpetuating this unfortunate doxa and has appointed (from left to right) Misako Aoki, Yu Kimura and Shizuka Fujioka as official state emissaries to represent the coolness of Japanese pop culture in the worlds of fashion and anime.

Well, I think they’re friggin’ adorable and I don’t mind admitting that I would find international diplomacy a lot more interesting if it involved a bit more otaku. It might just heal the world.

Okay, maybe not.