Mana loves all things colorful and cute — to a certain extent. As she gives me a tour of her bedroom via Zoom, the Tokyo-based singer and lead vocalist of the Japanese pop band CHAI points to a figurine of a character from ’ Haikyuu,’ her favorite animated series, hanging above her electronic keyboard. She then holds up a pink Furby doll in front of her chest. “Isn’t this one so lovely?” she asks.
Mana’s giddy energy almost makes me want to describe her as ”kawaii” — best translated as “cute” — in Japanese. But to Mana and her bandmates, kawaii is a word that is in desperate need of a rebrand.
“The ultimate compliment for a Japanese girl is to be called ‘kawaii,’” Mana tells me. “It’s used to describe girls with big, round eyes, pronounced noses, long silky hair and a smaller frame.”
Through bright pop vocals, unexpected fashion choices and feminist lyrics in English and Japanese, Mana and her bandmates — Yuuki, Kana and Yuna — are attempting to create a more progressive version of “kawaii” that rejects the infantilization of women and instead seeks to celebrate what are traditionally seen as imperfections. They call it “neo-kawaii.”
Kawaii’s origins can be traced back to postwar Japan; it was popularized through describing objects that emulate innocent, purity, and hyperfeminine qualities — think anime characters or colorful, bubbly writing styles, which were popularized among Japanese youth in the 1970s. Eventually, kawaii culture permeated the country’s fashion, cosmetics and even food industries, as seen from Lolita fashion aesthetics in Harajuku to colorful, petite food and drink options, mainly targeted towards women. By the late 90s and early 2000s, kawaii would eventually become the country’s ubiquitous (and often painfully unattainable) beauty standard.
Mana tells me that she’s not conventionally perceived as kawaii — yet her wide smile and roaring giggle implies a vibrant confident in her…
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