Ramped-Up Cuteness
One of the things that’s always intrigued me about Japan is the prevalence of kawaii—cuteness. It’s everywhere—from the “helping characters” that decorate almost every public sign, to the charms that dangle from everyone’s cell phones, to the stuffed animal prizes in huge “claw” arcade games. Some Japanese teenagers also go for kawaii in the way they dress, though we didn’t get to see the biggest showcase of outfits, which is apparently in Harajuku on Sundays. Next time. Hello Kitty is the biggest player; she’s everywhere, and I got used to seeing her wide-eyed, mouthless face pretty much everywhere we turned. If there was a tourist attraction, there was a Hello Kitty charm or souvenir to go with it, and we saw Kitty dressed as a rickshaw driver, a geisha, a fox (at Fushimi Inari), a deer (at Nara), a leek, a shinkansen (bullet train), a shinkansen stewardess, sitting in the lap of a Buddha, and in various other traditional garb. She graced the packages of snacks and sweets; she appear...