The impact of Kawaii culture on gender and Japan’s national image

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to examine Japan’s usage of kawaii culture as a soft power and to discuss whether it has been trying to change its worldwide image, while considering masculinity and femininity dimensions in culture. In this respect, historical progress and characteristics of Japan’s kawaii culture will be analyzed, and the global effects of kawaii will be explained with examples. As a country with a high masculinity index, Japan always had a negative image of a tough, militarist nation. Recently, kawaii culture has been drawing attention with its feminine qualities and has sparked an interest both in Japan and around the world. Japanese government has also been contributing to the spread of kawaii culture and has made many attempts for that purpose. In this study, Japan in terms of masculinity and femininity dimensions will be analyzed and arguments about them will be evaluated. Emphasizing the importance of soft power, the influence of gender roles in Japan and kawaii culture will be studied, and as a result the direction of Japan on the international platform will be discussed. In order to discover to what extent Japan has achieved to replace its negative image with a positive one and affected gender role perceptions around the world, examples of kawaii’s spread into other countries will be studied.