The Japanese say, " Kawaii!" ("How nice!") literally everything that they find attractive and at least to some extent worthy of attention. This relatively new aesthetic concept is now firmly rooted in the everyday consciousness of Japanese people, embodying the basic spirit of modern Japanese mass culture.

It's funny, but this word can also be used in speech about a famous model, and about a sumo wrestler, about comedians from a popular collective and about a teenage pop group. With the same ease, the Japanese pronounce this definition in relation to new brands of mini-cars, and about airy cakes with delicious strawberries, and chocolate bars in the form of hearts - the most popular product on St. Valentine's Day.

Kawaii elements are found everywhere in Japan: in large companies and small shops, in government agencies and municipal structures. So, the cute character Pikachu from the animated film "Pokemon" adorns the sides of three passenger planes of the airline ANA (All Nippon Airways). Asahi Bank presents on its plastic cards a touching Miffy, a character in a Dutch series of children's books. Each of Japan's 47 prefectures has its own adorable mascot characters.

THE WORD AND ITS MEANINGS

The aesthetic concept of kawaii originated in Japan in the 1970s, but finally established itself almost everywhere as one of the most significant aspects of modern Japanese culture in the early 1980s. These were the years of a sharp rise in the standard of living and material well-being on the wave of high economic growth, which gave rise to romantic dreams and new aesthetic ideals in the dreams of millions of Japanese people.

Over time, by the early 1990s, this new aesthetic category began to take on a more rigid, heavy and aggressive character, influenced by other specific and transformative fashion trends. The kitsch, avant-garde and unisex features of this period are already clearly visible here, which have absorbed the cross-influence of punk innovations, nostalgic folk motifs, African exotics, French delights, etc. And then this aesthetic once again returned to its retro version of the 1970s with features of pronounced kitsch and became known as "supercharging" (te-kawaii).

According to a 1992 survey of Japanese youth, 71% of young people between the ages of 18 and 30 preferred this fun style in everyday life and everyday life. What is even more characteristic is that 55.8% of the same respondents spoke not only for this new youth aesthetic, but also for the new stereotypes of behavior and attitudes to the surrounding world based on it, which were increasingly firmly rooted in Japanese reality. ¹

Kawaii becomes "the most used, most loved, and most common word in modern spoken Japanese. Its main meaning implies something "small", "charming", so the style of kawaii, as defined by researcher Kazuma Yamane, most accurately conveys such qualitative characteristics as"infantile, fragile and at the same time pretty"². In turn, Noboyoshi Kurita, a professor of sociology at Tokyo Musashi University, argues that kawaii is "a magic word that encompasses everything that is considered pleasant and desirable." ³

It is also important to recall that the modern word kawaii carries not only a sense of emotion and admiration, attraction and charm, but also a certain shade of sympathy and compassion, since the word kawaiso formed from it is translated as pitiful, unhappy, etc., with a clear shade of empathy.

Today, this rather subjective definition has absorbed a whole gamut of additional semantic nuances and related concepts, such as: pretty, innocent, unpretentious, unpretentious, natural, fragile, weak, inexperienced, etc. Hence its wide interpretation and equally unlimited circulation. And if earlier the word kawaii seemed to be suitable only to describe a cute child or a funny little animal, or to characterize the actions of adults who demonstrate childish or naive behavior, now it has far expanded the gra-

its original meaning and use, and at the same time the circle of people (both in age and social categories) who use it.

Just some 10 years ago, an office worker, not to mention people of a more mature age, could not afford to say this "dubious" word from youth slang in public because of embarrassment. Now it is equally often and involuntarily heard from the lips of both the female and male half of the country's population, regardless of their position, age, social status, etc.

Say this magic exclamation "kawaii!" and you will instantly lift the mood of your interlocutor, who will immediately feel support or approval in your words. And at the same time, this way you will save yourself the need to continue the topic raised, especially when it is simply unpleasant or uninteresting to you, and without any remorse you can easily avoid making unpleasant assessments or admitting your own incompetence in this matter.

Perhaps it is for this reason that it has recently become fashionable among young female students and employees to use only three universal words in any situation: Uso!, Honto? and Kawaii! This, in fact, means only emotional exclamations: "It can't be!", " Really?" and "What a charm!", but it frees you from any complications in communicating with people. Such Japanese "Man-eating Ellochki" jokingly began to be called san-go-zoku - "a group of three words".

Some of these fans of showing off their buzzwords go even further, combining the root morpheme kawaii with other words. The result is words like erokawai - erotic and cute at the same time, and so on.

The word kawaii has now become so widely used in Japan for no reason at all that in some circles it has become indecent to pronounce it again, although now due to its too frequent use and some vulgarization in this regard. So, one of the Tokyo colleges simply banned the use of this word on its territory.

It is also significant that for two or three years now, this word has almost not been used in the most "advanced" youth environment of the so - called otaku - fans of Japanese comics - manga, animation - anime, computer games and pop and rock music, which in fact inspire the most fashionable trends of the "kawaii"style.

Kawaii was replaced by the word - almost synonymous with it - my, which otaku girls and boys used to express sudden feelings of sympathy or affection for their favorite character or celebrity. Today it is no longer slang. In 2005, my was recognized as the most popular word in the Japanese language.

This word comes from the expression "my - izuru", which evokes associations with sprouting and rising shoots from the ground, just as the feeling of admiration and emotion gradually overwhelms human hearts at the sight of touching creatures or attractive elegant objects. In fact, this is still the same familiar concept of kawaii, but only in its new speech shell.

CALLIGRAPHIC ECCENTRICITIES

The emergence of the term or concept kawaii in the 1970s. they are associated with the fashion that was just born among young people, and especially girls, for bizarre hieroglyphs written as if by an inept child's hand. The first teenage calligraphic eccentricities of this kind were from-

This new hieroglyphic style was first introduced in 1974, but by 1978 it had already become a national phenomenon, and in 1985 about 5 million young people had already adopted this new hieroglyphic style.⁴

In the new style of writing, hieroglyphs were written exclusively in pencil and at the same time artfully rounded and deliberately stylized like children's pictures, resembling more like drawings for manga comics than modern writing. Instead of the usual strict neat columns of words arranged vertically from right to left, it was allowed to combine hieroglyphs quite freely in the horizontal version, interspersed with English words, Japanese alphabet, etc., in a word - a complete mixture of forms and styles. But the most important innovation is small drawings in the form of small hearts, stars, etc. akin to the now fashionable "emoticons", which appropriately and inappropriately coexisted with words.

Such a highly stylized text was not easy to decipher, much less understand. However, high school students were obsessed with learning all these new calligraphic tricks, which could not but cause teachers a natural sense of resistance and anxiety.

The fascination with the new calligraphic fashion became more widespread as Japanese teenagers grew up. This eclectic style of writing soon received many names-marui ji (round signs), koneko ji (cat writing), mata ji (manga signs), etc.Magazines, comics, advertisements and other printed products were filled with these new unusual characters. But still, the main factory of this iconic system remained the school, and its main inventors and distributors were the teenagers themselves and especially their female half, who found all this extremely cute and touching. They tirelessly repeated the word kawaii as an assessment, reason and essence of the revolution they had made in the field of calligraphy.

In Japan, hieroglyphic writing has always been one of the determining factors in the formation of Japanese culture, if we do not generalize this phenomenon to Japanese national artistic thinking. Hieroglyphs were a link between drawing and text, literature and painting, largely determining the syncretism and other features of Japanese traditional art, the influence of which was embodied in many modern cultural samples-manga, anime, etc.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the new style of hieroglyphic writing entailed significant transformations in other areas of the youth subculture, which by that time had already clearly outlined its contours.

NEW WRITING DICTATES A NEW LIFESTYLE

Following the new style of writing, a special youth slang appeared - generally accepted words and expressions modified and adapted to the youth environment. They were recorded using the same funny hieroglyphic signs and, as it were, brought the form of writing and sounding of these new word formations into line. Naturally, this new youth language was accessible only to initiates. So, the now very popular expression kakkoyi, which means "fashionable", "beautiful", was a distorted version of the generally accepted-kachchoyi.

The inventors of such words were not only teenagers themselves, but even Japanese pop idols, such as, for example, singer Noriko Sakai, who in 1985 created her own language, named after her-norippsho. The peculiarity of this slang consisted mainly in shortening or simplifying the pronunciation of words, mainly by replacing its last syllable-ending with the phoneme pi. So, the word kanasiy (sad) was changed to kanappi, and uresiy (happy) to ureppi. A childlike language was born-lightened, stylized to match the pronunciation of a child, funny and mischievous.

And after the appearance of funny hieroglyphs with pictures, like "dancing little men", funny and simpering breaking words in a childish manner, a suitable style of clothing for this occasion appeared, created as if for dolls and giving rise to colorful children's associations. Numerous articles published in the leading fashion magazines "An-an "and" Non-no " indicate that the desire to look not only young, but childlike and sweet to the point of sweetness originated among Japanese fashionistas in the mid-1970s.

In 1975, the magazine "An-an" in fact presented to the general public this new concept of kawaii applied to women's fashion: "Game! Children's charm! Let's go back to youth! Going on a date, we are all filled with love experiences, but at the same time we choose the clothes of elderly ladies. The time has come to declare who we really are. Whatever you say, but the most relevant topic of youth is "kawaii" ⁵.

In those years, luxury elements of an old European costume came into fashion: long sleeves with puffy poufs, an abundance of ruffles, fine expensive lace, frills and ribbons, and color preference was given to white, pink, pastel shades symbolizing modesty and innocence. But an alternative way of creating a cute image for children was also allowed - a variety of short-sleeve T-shirts, short and tight dresses, conciseness and over-moderation-

the simplicity of the cut was fully compensated by the bright decor - colorful drawings depicting your favorite characters from books and animated films, memorable inscriptions, etc.

Pink House Ltd, a large design company in Tokyo, was the first to respond to these new customer demands. The number of its clients grew at the same rate as its influence on shaping the tastes of the country's population, and soon reached such proportions that the Hakuhodo Research Institute started talking about a real youth movement named after the company-"Pink House" ⁶.

These newfangled trends so impressed the male part of the country's population that by the early 1980s, its representatives began to try on the same T-shirts with bright and funny characters, hats with popular logos, etc. And by the 1990s, the kawaii style had already acquired pronounced features of unisex, firmly entering the wardrobe of Japanese fashionistas, sometimes just blurring the differences between the sexes. True, this fashion lasted only until 2000, and the gender difference in clothing again triumphed, adding a special chic, cuteness and sexuality to women's dresses.

And having put on such outfits, their owners again felt the temptation to "fall into childhood" - hence the infantile nature in their behavior, gait, manners, a kind of childishness in choosing the intonation of their voice and playing with words. Their everyday life was filled with a lot of pleasant stylized useful, as well as useless things that create an atmosphere of home comfort and romantic dreams: pink curtains, toasters, mugs and other utensils with images of their favorite characters or fashionable logos in the style of kawaii aesthetics.

It seems that in those years, literally the entire female population of Japan experienced a "Lolita complex", trying to turn back into innocent and cute teenage girls. And Japanese contemporaries of this beloved Nabokov heroine went even further, creating their own separate subculture, the main component of which was costumed fashion shows in the open air near the Harajuku metro station in Tokyo.

Fashion for Lolita is still relevant today. These pretty little girls-dolls in pink dresses with an abundance of lace and frills, in lush short skirts, in touching caps, or with hair clips in the form of a bow "Katyusha" always cause sincere feelings of admiration among passers-by and, especially, among foreign tourists.

It was not always possible to build a harmonious finished image. Nevertheless, the love of pastel colors, touching frills and ruffles, etc., seems to be forever fixed in youth fashion. At least a considerable part of the current fans of showing off their Harajuku outfits still strictly adhere to these aesthetic canons, and modern designers actively use them in their new relevant collections.

Together with the passion for these fashionable things, the fashion for everything sweet and airy came into life not in the figurative, but in the literal sense of the word. Ice cream, cake, all kinds of milkshakes, mousses, chocolate, and generally the custom of eating something sweet became a habit of the Japanese, who were no less attracted to these desserts by their entire associative series with the world of childhood than by the pleasant taste.

A whole "sweet" industry began to be created. In Tokyo and Osaka, cute-looking mobile ice cream stands appeared, and, of course, not only children, but also a large number of adults could not pass by this attractive counter in every sense.

All sorts of small cafes became even more popular, where in a fashionable cozy atmosphere you could chat with friends or work colleagues, treat yourself to some favorite delicacy and enjoy not only its taste and aroma, but also sweet childhood memories.

The philosophy of such a business is simple: the love of sweets is always associated in Japan with the world of childhood, and at the same time it symbolizes some kind of childish and naive beginning in an adult, gives him a special charm and attractiveness-necessary features for a good image.

Perhaps for the same reason, kawaii aesthetics have found favorable ground for their development in the world of show business. It was childhood memories of beautiful fairy-tale heroines, and perhaps longing for the past years or unfulfilled distant dreams, that formed the first Japanese ideas about pop idols of modern pop, a bright representative of which was Seiko Matsuda, a star of the 1980s. The secret of her success lies not only in her natural talent, which, of course, cannot be denied. Touching pretty face, angular figure, simple short children's dresses, small steps on the stage and cute embarrassment in front of the camera made her native and close to millions of Japanese viewers. It was followed by a real boom of young, if not young performers, such as Ken-ken (debut in 1982, 14 years old), Miho Nakayama (debut in 1985, 15 years old), the group "SMAP" (debut in 1988, age group - 14 - 15 years)., "Hikaru Gend-zi" (debut in 1988, age group 14-16 years), etc.

In the 1990s, this image of the pop idol was already widely replicated in magazines, films and on television. And even today, you can become a regular participant in popular TV programs, TV shows or games without having much talent, if you have a childlike and pretty appearance, reminiscent of the" living dolls " of Japanese pop music.

Japanese teenagers, creating their own naive, but autonomous world of play and entertainment among their own kind, were far from any commercial goals, but this fun of young people was soon picked up by the media and advertising industry and therefore quickly spread throughout the country.

Japanese businesses were quick to respond to these new time demands. The newly emerging teen style was soon translated into the widest range of mass-market goods, expertly spurring the growing consumer boom in Japan.

FASHION TRINKETS INDUSTRY

The company "Satino", which at one time specialized in the production of stationery products with fashionable decor, immediately adopted this new youth aesthetic and quickly launched the production of products for young people that were familiar in their assortment, but far from ordinary in their new style. These are postcards, weeklies, diaries, pocket calendars, notebooks, pencils, inexpensive toys and other pleasant little things that depicted touching faces, funny animals or lovely flowers. All these cute little things were not so much intended for use in everyday life, but were designed to fill it with an atmosphere of joy and warmth of childhood memories.

When Shintaro Tsuji founded his Sanrio company in 1960, he set out to bring joy to people after the devastating years of war and post-war hardships and hardships. "A small gift means a big smile" - he formulated the goal of his business and was able to implement it very quickly and successfully ⁷. The secret of his success was that the aspiring entrepreneur subtly and clearly grasped: fashion for doll-child attractiveness and charming cuteness will be in demand. And he wasn't wrong.

Coincidentally, in 1971, the rapidly developing new kawaii youth aesthetic was given a powerful boost by the dramatic rise in popularity of modern Japanese manga and anime, which were then taking their first seven-mile steps under the leadership of Osamu Tenzuka.

What is manga and anime? The range of these most popular genres of mass culture in Japan is extremely wide, but, nevertheless, most of them are products intended for children and teenagers and designed in a style that is understandable and beloved by this age category. These are magical girls like Sailor Moon, cute fantastic animals such as the short-legged chubby robot cat Doraemon, i.e. skillfully exploited

the whole set of characters and plots that completely fit into the style of kawaii by almost all criteria. In this way, Japanese manga and anime have finally established this new youth aesthetic in the entire cultural space of Japan.

An interesting fact testifies to the popularity of this kind of "pretty" products of the new youth aesthetics. During the last APEC summit, held in the capital of Peru in November 2008, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso presented Russian President Dmitry Medvedev with a radio-controlled flying model of the popular cartoon character Doraemon, the blue robocot, a favorite character of his son Ilya. Since then, the idea was born to shoot a cartoon about the joint adventures of Doraemon and the Russian presidential cat Dorofey in Japan to strengthen relations between the two countries.

At the cutting edge of fashion for everything childish, pretty and naive, the company "Sanrio", which by that time had become a monopolist in the production of fashionable trinkets for young people, quickly expanded its product range. In small cozy specialty stores, they began selling slippers, towels, jewelry boxes, T-shirts, baseball caps and other pleasant trifles with all the familiar and beloved pretty images of popular drawn manga and anime characters, as well as non-aging Disney tapes.

But soft plush toys and dolls for girls were especially popular-funny round, cute and soft Button Nose, Tiny Poem, Duckydoo, Little Twin Stars, etc. The range of these attractive products was constantly expanding, and in turn these or other pretty images became the masters not only of children's dreams, but also of fully realized desires of adults.

The popularity of the cute Rika doll-one of the first inhabitants of the attractive world of kawaii, which appeared on the market in 1967 and brought huge profits from sales, could only be repeated by the amazing biker kittens Name-neko, who declared themselves in the 1980s. They symbolized a new youth subculture of bikers that was extremely popular in those years in Japan - boso-zoku, who were worn on roaring motorcycles through the central streets of the Japanese capital and inspired fear not only on adult passers-by, but also on their peers.

The supply of producers dictated the demand of consumers, and the demand for such charming souvenir products was extraordinary. Almost none of the visitors left the store empty-handed, always taking small postcards, inexpensive toys and other pleasant little things as a gift to their loved ones.

To promote its business, the company holds various kinds of mass festivals, organizes specialized tours in Japan and other countries, street celebrations of Christmas or St. Valentine's Day, etc.

Still, the most important source of income was and still is the cute kitty Hello Kitty, which became the real embodiment of the kawaii aesthetic.

The ending follows

¹ http:// www.kinsellaresearch.com

² Ibid.

³ http:// forum.mirf.ru

⁴ http: //www.kinsellaresearch.com

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living. Young Adults in Japan. New Attitudes Creating New Lifestyles (Research Report). Tokyo, 1984, p. 227.

⁷ http://leit.ru/modules.php

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