Japan’s New ‘Crooked Teeth’ (Yaeba) Boom

I’ve learned a few things about Japanese females over the years. First, they love cute things, especially kawaii phone straps attached to their cell phones, and they all seem to suffer from chronic constipation, no doubt from eating a large serving of white rice with every meal. Also, it’s quite common for Japanese females to have horrendously crooked teeth, often with canine or “eye teeth” that jut outwards like fangs. While these crooked teeth — called yaeba (yah-eh-ba) in Japanese, literally meaning “eight layered teeth” — probably look strange to Westerners, the Japanese think they’re extremely cute, and many girls will opt not to correct crooked teeth. Right now Japan is having a yaeba boom, with many cute pop stars sporting fangs, a phenomenon sparked by the popularity of AKB48 member Tomomi Itano. Yaeba are a staple of anime character design too, represented as a single fang in the mouth, a slight visual imperfection that makes the character more charming.

Yaeba fangs are considered cute in Japan, and are really popular now.