Insidiously 'cute': Kawaii cultural production and ideology in Japan.
Published: 2006
Language: eng
Number of pages: 100
ISBN-13: 9780494211137
Description: This thesis examines the ideologies and cultural norms that can be carried within the seemingly harmless images of kawaii culture in contemporary Japan and seeks to explicate what vestigial messages of pre-war identity formation it continues to circulate. The first three chapters examine the anime and manga of Doraemon and Anpanman and the commercial mascot Peko-chan, revealing that  kawaii production continues to perpetuate identity constructions tied to gendered power relationships, divine ancestry and colonialism. The following chapters then examine, through the short flash film Kikkoman , the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party's logo Shishiro  and the paintings by Yoshitomo Nara, how kawaii production can be intentionally applied to make social and political statements. By gaining an understanding of how kawaii cultural products are conceptualized, produced and applied, we can see that seemingly simplistic imagery and narrative are complicit in the formation and re-production of normative social roles and identities.
Notes: Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-03, page: 1239.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2006.

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