There are many ways to approach an understanding of Japan, through the classical aspects of the country, through its music, or else by immersing yourself in the joyful confusion of modern pop culture. If you are so inclined, you can also try to understand Japan through its “cult of cuteness,” expressed in the endless stream of kawaii original characters that exist here. When Shintaro Tsuji started the Yamanashi Silk Center Co. to make cute greeting cards — actively copying the business model of the Hallmark corporation, which he had great respect for — he probably had no idea what a huge effect the company he’d later rename Sanrio was going to have on the world. Since the introduction of Hello Kitty in 1974, Japan has seen a near-constant stream of characters for every taste, including creations with “calculated cuteness” by Sanrio (Merry Melody, Bad Batz Maru), bizarre characters that are almost self-parodies (Afro-ken, the dog with a rainbow-colored ‘fro and Kogepan, a character based on a burned roll at the bakery that no one wants to buy), anti-characters (the suicidally depressed Gloomy Bear), and characters that represent every day objects (Ochaken and Occhan, which capitalize on the popularity of green tea here). Characters are even made of objects you couldn’t possibly consider cute: today we’re posting a pen featuring a cute little pink unchi (poop) character. Kawaii!
When you learn a language that’s as different from English as Japanese is, there are bound to be a lot of rough patches where the meanings of words don’t fit together perfectly. In English we only need one word to express concepts like brother or cold, but in Japanese there are separate terms for older and younger brother (oniisan/ototo) and for the concepts of cold to the touch vs. coldness in the air (tsumetai/samui). Some basic household words like ojisan and obasan, meaning uncle and aunt, pull double duty as generic terms for any middle-aged man or woman you meet on the street, too. After you assign dual meanings to linguistic concepts long enough, your brain gets used to it and starts recognizing patterns, making it easier. Thankfully, there are times when two concepts in English will boil down to just one word in Japanese, such as the words shy and embarrassed, which can both be expressed as hazukashii in Japanese even though the nuances are slightly different in English. I remember back as an English teacher, trying to help my students grapple with the differences between the words ironic, sarcastic and cynical, all of which can be expressed with a single concept in Japanese (iyami).
