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Portable monsters and commodity cuteness: Poke´mon as Japan's new global power
... Originalmente Pokémon es una franquicia del entretenimiento electrónico, cuya propiedad es tripartita entre las empresas Nintendo, Game Freak Inc. y Creatures Inc. La palabra Pokémon es la contracción de las palabras Pocket y Monsters que literalmente significan "Monstruos de bolsillo" (Kondamudi, Protano y Alhoori, 2017). De esta manera, un Pokémon es básicamente una criatura virtual diseñada para ser "genial" o "adorable" y causar empatía con los jugadores de todas las edades (Allison, 2003;Berque, Chiba, Hashizume, Kurosu y Showalter, 2018;Surman, 2009). La primicia de Pokémon fue concebida por el diseñador de videojuegos japonés Satoshi Tajiri, que tiene como eje central el hacerse con todos los seres digitales posibles, así lo deja ver su eslogan comercial en inglés: "Gotta Catch 'Em All" (Allison, 2003;Bainbridge, 2013;Keogh, 2017;Zsila et al., 2018). ...
... De esta manera, un Pokémon es básicamente una criatura virtual diseñada para ser "genial" o "adorable" y causar empatía con los jugadores de todas las edades (Allison, 2003;Berque, Chiba, Hashizume, Kurosu y Showalter, 2018;Surman, 2009). La primicia de Pokémon fue concebida por el diseñador de videojuegos japonés Satoshi Tajiri, que tiene como eje central el hacerse con todos los seres digitales posibles, así lo deja ver su eslogan comercial en inglés: "Gotta Catch 'Em All" (Allison, 2003;Bainbridge, 2013;Keogh, 2017;Zsila et al., 2018). ...
... •Personajes altamente reconocibles y entrañables PG cuenta con una ventaja competitiva muy difícil de igualar por sus rivales, la nostalgia desarrollada por los jugadores (Sucasas, 2014;Vaterlaus, Frantz y Robecker, 2018). Conseguir la exclusividad de la nostalgia lleva demasiado tiempo de gestación, pero, de lograrlo, los beneficios organizacionales deberán superar ampliamente los sacrificios realizados (Allison, 2003;Bainbridge, 2013). Orosz et al. (2018) señalaron que la nostalgia es un motivador muy particular en PG y que puede variar con respecto a otros juegos de RA. ...
Pokémon Go es un juego descargable basado en la localización que causó una histeria colectiva durante su lanzamiento en 2016. Este artículo, mediante una investigación documental, tiene como objetivo diseñar un modelo teórico con base en los factores de éxito de Pokémon Go. Se identificaron cinco factores de éxito: 1. nostalgia, 2. descarga gratuita, 3. actualizaciones continuas, 4. dinámica de juego, y 5. sana implementación de micropagos. El modelo teórico diseñado puede influir en el desarrollo de posteriores modelos estratégicos que auxilien a los tomadores de decisiones en la dirección estratégica organizacional. Además, el presente aporte teórico puede ser capitalizado por la comunidad académica para analizar a profundidad el mercado de las aplicaciones electrónicas en subsecuentes investigaciones empíricas.
... The cuteness of Japanese products can be seen in games such as Pokémon. Pokemon promotes social interactions among school-children, with some research identifying that the cute game creates a space like a cushion between school and home, relieving daily pressures, creating conversation, and increasing interaction among children (Allison, 2003). In terms of Kumamon, we could use this to understand why the fans of Kumamon might set up groups, have tea together, use Kumamon as a spark for a speaking topic, and even believe they receive positive power from Kumamon (Kameyama, 2014). ...
... Consuming cuteness reflects and soothes yearnings for comfort and childhood that can be discerned across the breadth of Japanese society. Consequently, cute goods spread across a variety of items including clothes and games, attracting Japanese of both genders and all ages and has extended beyond the initial image of young girls as key consumers (Allison, 2003). ...
... Some argue that cuteness has comforting power, offering to fill people' emotional needs, as demonstrated by Hello Kitty (also a Japanese phenomenon) (Steinberg, 2016). Kawaii ("cuteness") in Japanese means sweetness and gentleness, and is to comfort and warmth, in particular memories of childhood warmth (Allison, 2003). ...
City branding is a managerial procedure which offers any given city with a distinct image and identity, provide cities with a chance of being clear, positive, different and distinguishable from other competitors. The purpose of this paper is using Kumamon mascot the most successful regional mascot in Japan, as an example to identify the nature of mascot city branding strategy. In Western countries, using a mascot as a city brand seems unusual, however, in Japan, mascots as city brands have been involved in urban planning systems. Employing a large number of promotional strategies, the local prefecture created a unique Kumamon city brand and enhanced the local image, resulting in significant economic benefits. The paper argues that five main reasons contributed to the success of Kumamon: government support, efficient public transport, the power of emotional attachment and anthropomorphism, social media and mascot brand. Understanding how it succeeded can be an important tool in assisting policy makers to decide what if anything could be replicated in other cities and regions regarding the use of mascot branding.
... konst, kaos, kris Japansk konst har sedan efterkrigstiden tematiserat både krigets följder och de samhällsförändringar som återuppbyggnad och modernisering innebar för Japan som nation. Här har populärkulturen en särskild plats genom att representera en växande ekonomi -japansk populärkultur är och har varit en framgångsrik exportvara -en förutsättning för välstånd (Allison 2003). I populärkulturen tematiseras också en infantiliserad under-och eftergivenhet gentemot USA, något som många konstnärer har inkluderat i sina arbeten (Murakami 2000). ...
... Idag står PIKA! snarare för den blixtformade svansen på Pikachu från Pokémon, den oöverträffat mest populära tecknade serien i japansk barnkultur (Allison 2003). Denna koppling mellan populärkultur och katastrof tolkades som blasfemi och ledde till att Chim↑poms utställning i Hiroshima ställdes in, men de valde ändå att stanna kvar i staden för att bemöta kritiken och förklara sina intentioner. ...
This article analyses the Japanese art collective Chim↑pom and their interventions in contemporary and historical aspects of nuclear politics and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The study situates Chim↑pom’s artistic work in a context of a new governmentality, theoretically developed by the philosopher Brian Massumi (2009). The ”environmental” governmentality is – contrary to Michel Foucault’s (2008) concept biopolitics – not built on calculation and statistics, or securing a flourishing population, but on neoliberal economization of risk and disaster. Intertwined as a part of the environmental governmentality is the neoconservative militarization, that responds to the very same unstable processes, but with military force. These processes are ”environmental”, not because they are ecological or green, but because they act on the forces and powers of open and unstable processes, the forces that we sometimes call natural disasters or accidents. The aim of the article is to analyse Chim↑pom’s work on the Fukushima crisis and the historical traumas of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the light of this new governmentality in Japan. Chim↑pom’s relational aesthetics also feeds on these open-ended and unstable of processes, however in terms of social and emotional orientations. The historical conditions that have discursively separated nuclear power as ”peaceful use of nuclear energy” from its disastrous military and warfare use is the hegemony of rational technocratic based in a modern liberal ”biopolitics”. This modernization has built on dichotomies such as that between body and mind, reason and emotion, nature and culture. Chim↑pom thematise nuclear politics from the perspective of those who has been silenced and ignored by this dichotomization, or those
... Future studies drew upon this connection and began examining cute characteristics as present in teddy bears (Hinde and Barden 1985) and cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse (Gould 1979) and Pikachu (Allison 2003). These studies in particular offer a larger claim in the increase of neotenic features/cutification of these characters by means of cultural selection tied to our underlying care-taker responses. ...
... More recently, attempts have been made to understand the Kindchenschema as it plays a role in the perception of cuteness as an aesthetic. Approaches of this nature have largely explored the cultural reception and behavioral responses associated with cute aesthetic artefacts, including: how the development of modern consumer aesthetics has led to a proliferation of cute goods and imagery in the marketplace (Allison 2003;Madge 1997;Patrick 2016); how cute aesthetics lead to prosociality (Gn 2016); the affective powers of cute as an aesthetic (Ngai 2005). ...
This research seeks to expand on the current literature surrounding scientific and aesthetic concepts of cuteness through a biosemiotic lens. By first re-evaluating Konrad Lorenz’s Kindchenschema, and identifying the importance of schematic vs featural perception, we identify the presence of a series of perceptual errors that underlie existing research on cuteness. There is, then, a need to better understand the cognitive structure underlying one’s perception of cuteness. We go on to employ the methodological framework of Modeling Systems Theory to identify and establish the forms that underlie both the encoding and decoding of cute phenomena. In redefining cuteness as a cohesive code, and establishing Kindchenschema as a schematic metaform, we set the foundation for the incorporation of biological and cultural theories of cuteness. This research offers an initial methodological framework for the examination of cute artifacts, that can be utilized in the fields of normative aesthetics, marketing, and design.
... Satoshi Tajiri, who designed the first Pokémon game in 1996, wanted to create a preindustrial play-world for urban children, one that replicated his childhood experiences of collecting insects and crayfish (Allison 2003). Many Pokémon are based on real species; Caterpie, for example, strongly resembles the caterpillar of Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus, Linnaeus 1758), while the famous Pikachu is based on a Pika (Ochotonidae sp.). ...
... As Satoshi Tajiri noticed during the 1990s, rapidly growing urban areas offer limited opportunities to connect directly with nature (Allison 2003). This reflects a widespread concern amongst conservationists that people, and particularly young people, have become disconnected from nature through urban living and are therefore less likely to value wildlife and wild places (Balmford et al. 2002;Balmford & Cowling 2006;Pergams & Zaradic 2006), a concept widely popularised as Nature Deficit Disorder (Louv 2005). ...
Pokémon Go, an augmented reality (AR) smartphone game, replicates many aspects of real‐world wildlife watching and natural history by allowing players to find, capture, and collect Pokémon, which are effectively virtual animals. In this article, we consider how the unprecedented success of Pokémon Go as a smartphone game might create opportunities and challenges for the conservation movement. By encouraging players to go outside and consider various aspects of virtual species’ biology, the game could increase awareness and engagement with real‐world nature. However, interacting with Pokémon could alternatively encourage exploitation of wildlife or replace players’ desire to interact with real‐world nature. We suggest a number of ways in which Pokémon Go could be adapted to increase its conservation impact, and how new conservation‐orientated AR games could be created. We conclude that Pokémon Go sets a precedent for well‐implemented AR games from which the conservation movement could borrow a number of ideas.
... The game is founded upon the Pokémon series, which revolves around various pocket monsters; it raised to fame in the late 1990s and early 2000s after the launch of the related Nintendo Gameboy video games and subsequent Japanese manga comics and anime television series (Curtin, 2004;Allison, 2003;Shen, 2002). The Pokémon world is inhabited by various Pokémons with unique skills and abilities; individuals strive to catch these Pokémons and train them to evolve into stronger, more complex beings in so as to become masters and battle against other trainers (Allison, 2003). ...
... The game is founded upon the Pokémon series, which revolves around various pocket monsters; it raised to fame in the late 1990s and early 2000s after the launch of the related Nintendo Gameboy video games and subsequent Japanese manga comics and anime television series (Curtin, 2004;Allison, 2003;Shen, 2002). The Pokémon world is inhabited by various Pokémons with unique skills and abilities; individuals strive to catch these Pokémons and train them to evolve into stronger, more complex beings in so as to become masters and battle against other trainers (Allison, 2003). The series was so popular that on its tenth anniversary in 2006 Pokémon Inc. had amassed over $25 billion in profits (Bainbridge, 2014;Kelts, 2007). ...
The gamification of retail, helped essentially by the development of augmented reality, is hailed today as being the reverser of declining retail sales trends. With the rapid expansion and adoption of the Pokémon Go augmented reality game, there is a dire need to understand the true implications of this game app on brands and retailers alike. Given that studies on the risks attributed to the actual gamification of augmented reality are still scarce, this paper establishes an early understanding on this subject and expands the discussion on the potential negative implications of the commoditisation of augmented reality. Based on an exploratory qualitative design whereby 24 experts in the marketing field were interviewed, this study develops the currently narrow theoretical and practical understanding of how these apps could affect retailers. In sum, the study proposes a pioneering direction on the likely negative implications that gaming platforms such as Pokémon Go could
have on the first moment of truth.
... This bibliographic and bibliometric investigation involved an extensive review of diverse sources, revealing a wealth of scholarly inquiries into the multifaceted concept of evil from varying perspectives. The corpus of literature explored numerous facets of anime such as its global power (Allison 2003), its global and regional effect (Teodorescu 2019), its effect on young people (Yamamura 2014), its religious insights (Tan 2020), its pedagogical potential (Jaohari and Kuraesin 2021), the artistic (Cheng 2010), philological (Yoshihara 2020), cultural and mythological values (Escudier 2020) that it has, the moral content and philosophical depth (Steiff and Tamplin 2010), the importance to be brought in academic libraries (Pope Robbins 2014) and so on. ...
Beyond its captivating narratives and stunning visuals, Japanese anime offers audiences worldwide a unique window into Japan’s rich history, culture, philosophy and values. Within this vast and diverse universe, there exists a recurring and multifaceted thematic exploration — theodicy and the philosophy of ‘evil’. This study aims to comprehensively deconstruct and examine the portrayal of ‘evil’ in Japanese anime emphasizing its substantial relevance within the broader discourse of Japan's soft power. Characters’ behaviors, actions, curses, lability, suffering, natural disasters, wars, natural humanity, monsters are presented in a way that prompts viewers to question the true nature of evil, if there is any. Fundamental to this study is the notion that 'evil' in anime is not an absolute, fixed concept, but rather an ephemeral perspective. Moreover, sometimes anime delves into the unconventional portrayal of the supreme beings as evil, challenging traditional dichotomies of g(o)od and (d)evil, which from a certain reality-level do not exist anymore. In anime, the only things that exist are will and power, the way that they are used being a matter of perspective. What is the systematic cycle of evil in anime and how will it affect the next generation’s mentality.
Keywords: cycle of evil in Japanese anime, God as power and will, non-dichotomous concept of evil, postmodernism, deconstructionism, Vos Viewer
... Quello teen è piuttosto un "transgenere", che si canonizza in seno a storie e volti di un certo tipo inizialmente, ma che poi si articola in svariati modi, producendo un rizoma teen piuttosto variegato. Alla base vi è dunque la progettazione di una cuteness come vero e proprio "cultural capital" (Allison 2003), che gode di una sorta di "appeal universale" (Yamato 1988). Come abbiamo già visto, a partire dal Kindchenschema di Lorenz la cuteness si può intendere come la culturalizzazione di tratti specifici che tendiamo a differenziare da quelli adulti secondo un protocollo evoluzionistico. ...
Il volto dell’infanzia è un oggetto culturale tanto carico di significato quanto ad oggi inesplorato. Ciò appare controintuitivo: oggi avanzano con una certa dirompenza face studies che delineano la natura pervasiva del volto in quanto dispositivo comunicativo, retorico, empatico, tuttavia tali approcci sono concentrati quasi esclusivamente sul volto adulto. Al contrario la mediasfera contemporanea è popolata di volti di bambini, che assumono i più svariati e complessi significati. Se l’infanzia è il convitato di pietra negli studi sul volto, una culturologia dei volti infantili si rende essenziale. Ne consegue la necessità di una messa a sistema, che in questo volume si diparte dal più ingente deposito dell’immaginario visivo dalla fine del 1800 a oggi. Si articolano così le premesse metodologiche per uno studio sistematico a partire dal cinema, luogo d’elezione del volto dell’infanzia, ma anche prisma attraverso cui si rifrangono le culture audiovisive contemporanee, dalla newborn photography a FaceApp, passando per Samara Morgan, Shirley Temple, i Teletubbies e molti altri.
... Within the social 135 context of Japan, cuteness, known as kawaisa in Japanese (from the adjective kawaii, meaning 136 "cute"), is widely acknowledged as an aesthetic symbol that can exemplify one of the Japanese 137 popular mainstream cultures (Nittono, 2016). As an essential part of the social zeitgeist, the 138 notion of cuteness has been profoundly employed by scholars to understand global commodities 139 (Allison, 2003), branding image (Kovarovic, 2011), and consumer behavior (Nenkov & Scott,140 2014). In particular, Takamatsu (2020) empirically proposed a cuteness responsiveness scale to revealed that customers' perceived functional, cognitive, emotional, and social values, which are 168 first-level outcomes of experience, lead to second-level outcomes (e.g., trust) of psychological 169 climate, thus influencing willingness. ...
... Alongside interactive capabilities, aesthetics play a role in human relationships with robots: Cute has been labeled the dominant aesthetic of digital content (Wittkover 2012) and cuteness (Harris 2000;Allison 2003;Cross 2004;Sherman & Haidt 2011;Ngai 2012;Dale 2017;May 2019), alongside kawaii engineering as suggestive design tactics. "There may be a perceived inhuman or dehumanizing aspect to digital technologies in general that we instinctively attempt to mitigate by transforming digital technologies into exemplifications of the cute, sleek, or cool" (Wittkover 2012, 215). ...
The 21st century has been described as the Century of Play.
The change in current play is particularly noticeable when
looking at technological developments. This thesis deals with
the technologization, digitalization, and connectedness of play
between 2010–2020. The research explores forms of contemporary play, playthings, and players in a time when digitalization and connectedness have extended to various tools and realms of play— devices, toys, games, apps, and mediated playful environments. At the heart of the research are playthings and technologies conceptualized here as play machines, players using these tools within their communities and contexts, and, due to technological evolution, play research that increasingly, expands our knowledge about How Play Moves Us physically, cognitively, and emotionally.
... As a positive emotion, kawaii can make users feel happy and comfortable (Cheok 2010) and enhance users' attention and carefulness (Nittono et al. 2012;Zhao et al. 2014). Kawaii has led to the global success of many products, such as Hello Kitty (Yano 2013;Kovarovic 2011) and Pokemon (Allison 2003), and has generated significant economic benefits and become a key factor in product design. Recently, in China, cultural products such as Japanese animations and comics have become increasingly popular among the younger generation, and the concept of kawaii has also spread. ...
With the popularity of Japanese products and kawaii culture in China, understanding how the Chinese perceive kawaii style will help to satisfy their emotional needs in product design. To overcome the problems of expansion difficulty and low efficiency due to expert dependence on traditional methods, this study combines deep learning and Kansei engineering to recognize and analyze the kawaii style by taking female fashion clothing as an example. We build a perceptual annotation database containing 7000 female fashion pictures, each of which has 8 valid kawaii scores labeled by participants, with 4 scores from men and 4 scores from women. Then, we train two neural models and obtain a classification network (kawaii vs. non-kawaii) with 84.45% accuracy and a regression network (the value of kawaii) with an average error of 0.42 points. These recognition models perform better than manual recognition for the kawaii style. In addition, to analyze the kawaii formation of female fashion clothing, we detect the design features of kawaii styles, non-kawaii styles, and gender differences using the neuron analysis method and summarize the corresponding design elements. Finally, using three exploratory experiments, we extend the models to similar products, different types of products, and different visual styles. Overall, we apply deep learning to achieve automatic support in the product design of the kawaii style without the reliance on experts and intensive labor.
... In late 1980s and early 1990s, national government organizations started to represent themselves with kawaii mascots: the Tôkyô police force created its mascot, Pîpo-kun, in 1987; a National Census character was made in 1990; and the Labor Ministry changed its name to "Hello Work" in 1991 (McVeigh 1996, 310;"National Census Image Character" 1990;Madge 1997, 156). In the 1990s, cute children's cartoons and toys like Tamagotchi and Pokémon, which are anthropomorphized and animalized characters, became hugely popular both in Japan and in the United States (Allison 2003;McVeigh 2000b, 169-70). ...
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91832/1/foozle.pdf
... According to Lorenz (1943), the physical characteristics of babies, a relatively large face compared to body size, rounded and protruding cheeks, relatively low placement of large eyes in the face and soft elastic surface texture, are suggested to be the shape of a round body; the stimulus appears cute when combined together. Many studies in the literature recognise Lorenz' definition (Allison, 2003;Chuang Tzu-i, 2005;Ngai, 2005;Möller, 2009;Hellen and Saaksjarvi, 2013;Brougere, 2013, p. 345). Cuteness has been socio-culturally labelled with emotional, evaluative images (innocent, nostalgic, rich, cheerful, unique, etc.), and has become a sympathetic, intimate, versatile tool for personality presentations (Bryce, 2006(Bryce, , p. 2272. ...
The purposes of this study are to determine whether attitudes towards cute products depend on consumer personalities and to reveal the personality and demographic characteristics of individuals who are most sensitive towards cute stimuli and products. Descriptive research and face-to-face survey methods were used to collect primary data. According to the research conducted to identify the individuals with the most positive attitude towards cute products, it is possible to list these personality and sociodemographic characteristics: women; individuals in the 35–54 age range; individuals of non-neurotic personality types, particularly individuals with openness personality types; and individuals with hedonic structure. Moreover, although neurotic personality types don’t like cute products results show that if we support marketing efforts with hedonic factors, then neurotic consumers become positive towards cute products.
... What Melson and Turkle describe might be what Allison defines as "postmodern play aesthetics". 64 Robotic pets are changing. You can reset their personality traits, so as to avoid uncomfortable or inconvenient surprises. ...
... Explorations of cuteness as an aesthetic concept have arisen as a result of investigations into modern consumer aesthetics (Allison, 2003;Madge, 1997;Patrick, 2016). Alongside traditionally marginalized aesthetic concepts such as "Zany" and "Interesting," cuteness has only recently received attention as a dominant consumer aesthetic worldwide (Ngai, 2005). ...
This study investigates the effect of kindchenschema across cultures. The kindchenschema is a gestalt that triggers a special protective behavior (Lorenz, 1970). We adopted a normative approach, which searches for possible objective aesthetics and canonic values (i.e. normative aesthetics; Crowther, 2004), and conducted a pretest, where it was inquired whether we could transfer the canonic rules of “looking cute” into five dimensions: small size, light-color, tilted angle, wide, and round shape. 229 participants completed a task in which they modified a rectangle for the parameters of size, color, angle, height-width ratio, and roundness to create a “cute rectangle.” As predicted, the “cute rectangles” created by participants were significantly smaller, lighter, more tilted, or rounder than the reference shape. The canonic rules of cuteness were confirmed by the pretest data. In the main study, type of cultural self-construals (independent or interdependent) was hypothesized as a significant predictor that differentiates the evaluation of cuteness aesthetics. 228 participants from Estonia, South Korea, and the United States (N = 228) evaluated 32 rectangles with a high or low level of the 5 cuteness dimensions in 9 semantic differential scales along with the perceived cuteness. The findings suggest that an individual’s interdependent cultural self-construal is a determinant factor in the perception of cuteness. We then discuss the theoretical and practical implication of cuteness aesthetics with regard to cultural self-construals, caring behaviors, and the perception of others. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)
... In this respect, the bedroom is reminiscent of certain kawaii formulations, or the particular brand of commodified Japanese 'cuteness' (e.g. Kinsella 1995Kinsella , 2002Allison 2003Allison , 2006Akita 2005). Studies of kawaii in Japan and elsewhere have argued that the practice allows women to subvert traditional expectations of adulthood, particularly those involving adherence to strict gender norms. ...
The dramatic reconfiguration of the social, political, and ideological order in South Africa since 1990/1994 has demanded a concomitant reconceptualization of (white) Afrikaner notions of self and belonging in the (new) nation. In this article, we draw on recent developments in the study of varidirectional voicing (polyphony), performance, and mediatization to examine how the South African rap-rave group Die Antwoord makes use of parody and metaparody in their music to critique emerging ‘new Afrikaner’ identities and the racial, class, and gender configurations on which they are based. We also discuss the structural limits of these critiques and the political potential of (meta)parodic performance more generally. ((Meta)parody, polyphony, performance, race, class, gender, South Africa)*
... Enjoyment, coolness, and user friendliness are examples of kansei values that have been widely applied to products. Kawaii is one kansei value that denotes such positive connotations as cute, lovable, and charming and plays a critical role in the worldwide success of many products, such as Hello Kitty [3] and Pokemon [4]. Based on this success, we believe that kawaii will be a key factor for future product design. ...
Kansei values are critical factors for manufacturing. Kawaii, an adjective that denotes such positive meanings as cute or lovable, has become even more critical as a kansei value. Therefore, we believe that kawaii will be a key factor in future product design. We focus on systematic study for kawaii products in terms of such physical attributes as color, shape, and material perception. In this research, we proposed a method to obtain effective attributes for kawaii cosmetic bottles. First, we collected evaluation results of the kawaii of cosmetic bottle images and constructed a model using deep learning. Then we modified the images focusing on particular attributes and evaluated them using our model to obtain effective attributes. Finally, we verified those attributes by experimentally evaluating the modified images. The novelty of this research is our new method to obtain effective attributes, which can be applied to other products and other kansei values.
... This impact of soft power is now spreading across the world today as demonstrated in the widespread adoption of several Asian brands and consumption practices (e.g. in food, entertainment, recreation, electronics) across the global market (Hong and Kim 2013;Kniazeva and Belk 2012). For instance, the growth of cute culture originated in the Asia-Pacific region, especially Japan, has influenced other parts of the world (Granot et al. 2014) to consider kawaii (cute) characteristics (both physical like having large bright eyes, big round face and personality traits like being young, imaginary, fun, innocent) in relation to traditional Japanese culture as well as contemporary global commodification such as cartoon characters like Hello Kitty and Pokemon (Allison 2003). The other example is consuming of Eastern wisdom such as Yoga which has gained wider interest in the Western world resulting in a fusion of ancient Eastern practice and a contemporary Western lifestyle (Kniazeva and Belk 2012). ...
Globalization has expanded boundaries of development from a dominant focus on the developed to the developing markets and from the generally Western-centric to the other economies such as the Asian market.
... Do Rozario, 2004;Moffitt and Harris, 2014;Wohlwend, 2012) to Pokémon (e.g. Allison, 2003;Bainbridge, 2014;Koroleva et al., 2016). ...
The Peanuts brand has commanded multimillion-dollar success in the challenging Japanese marketplace. The strength of the intellectual property developed by comic artist Charles M. Schulz and its resonance with fundamental Japanese tastes account for only part of the brand’s success. This study uses a historiographic methodology of ethnographic, interview, and archival research to examine the case of the Peanuts brand’s strategic approach to expansion in the Japanese market. The research findings indicate that (a) licensing is a strategically profitable model for adapting and logistically distributing a product to a new market, (b) active oversight structured into the licensing scheme is critical for maintaining brand integrity, and (c) division of authority that relies on localized partnerships within that structure of oversight is necessary to allow for the desired adaptation key to success.
... Pokémon ou Pocket Monsters (Monstros de Bolso) é uma franquia japonesa que apresenta diversas criaturas baseadas, em sua maioria, em animais reais (FRY et al., 2013;MENDES et al., 2016). Criada por Satoshi Tajiri em 1996 para jogos eletrônicos, os quais foram desenvolvidos pela empresa Game Freak e lançados pela Nintendo Company, Pokémon virou febre mundial entre crianças e adolescentes até início dos anos 2000 (SCHLESINGER, 1999a;KENT, 2001;ALLISON, 2003;TOBIN, 2004). O enredo da franquia, de uma maneira geral, se passa em regiões habitadas por diversos Pokémon e por humanos que capturam e criam os monstros para, por exemplo, treiná-los para batalhas (SCHLESINGER, 1999b;PEREIRA, 2010). ...
Pokémon é uma franquia japonesa lançada em 1996 que apresenta diversas criaturas baseadas, em sua maioria, em animais reais. Recentemente a franquia voltou a ser um grande fenômeno mundial com a estreia de "Pokémon Go", um jogo para smartphones. Seguindo a tendência de jogos para celulares foi lançado, em 2017, "Pokémon: Magikarp Jump", que gira em torno da criatura Magikarp, inspirada na carpa-comum, Cyprinus carpio Linnaeus, 1758, espécie de peixe amplamente comercializada para fins ornamentais, sendo conhecida nesse caso como carpa colorida, nishikigoi ou koi. Assim como no mundo real onde há diversas variedades de koi, o jogo apresenta, até a presente versão, 33 padrões de coloração de Magikarp. Assim, neste trabalho foram comparados os padrões encontrados no Pokémon com as carpas nishikigoi. Os resultados indicaram a relação de 23 padrões de coloração de Magikarp com 13 variedades de carpas coloridas e, além disso, aspectos etológicos e ecológicos da aquicultura de carpas reais foram identificados no jogo. Analogias como a realizada neste trabalho (mundo Pokémon x mundo biológico natural) abrem uma gama de possibilidades na abordagem de temas em Ciências e Biologia, bem como se constituem em importantes ferramentas de divulgação/popularização científica.
Abstract
Nishikigoi Jump: color patterns of Pokémon Magikarp and its relationship with the varieties of koi
Pokémon is a Japanese franchise released in 1996 that features several creatures based mostly on real animals. Recently, the franchise has once again become a major hit with the debut of "Pokémon Go", a game for smartphones. Following the trend of games for mobile phones it was released, in 2017, "Pokémon: Magikarp Jump", which presents the creature Magikarp, inspired on the common carp, Cyprinus carpio Linnaeus, 1758, a fish species widely used for ornamental purposes and known as colored carp, nishikigoi or koi. Just as in the real world where there are several varieties of koi, the game presents, until the present version, 33 color patterns of Magikarp. In this work the color patterns found in the Pokémon and in nishikigoi carp were compared. The results indicated that 23 patterns of Magikarp were related with 13 varieties of colored carp. In addition, ethological and ecological aspects of aquaculture of real carps were identified in the game. Analogies such as those done in this work (Pokémon world x natural biological world) can be used in different approaches to Science popularization.
... A class action is ongoing in California by property owners against Niantic and Nintendo for encouraging trespass. 1 Pokémon GO does not seem to possess an omniscient internal adviser to the extent seen in classic Nintendo Pokémon games where Professor Oak would prevent a user from doing something or using an item inappropriately by reminding players that 'This isn't the time to use that!' 2 The hub of the illegality issue is that Pokémon GO, as an augmented reality game using big data and algorithms to generate an open location, worldwide play space, was released without direct human oversight and without appropriate checks and balances on user activity. Pokémon GO is the second location based, augmented reality game developed by Niantic and it incorporates many features of the predecessor game Ingress [65]. ...
This paper argues that the augmented reality gaming application for smart devices, Pokémon GO shows the fate of the legal subject as a neoliberal monster subjugated to the limitations imposed by hypercapitalism. The game, derived from Nintendo’s iconic Pokémon franchise, reveals the legal subject as a frenzied, diminished and impulsive being, allowed to see, move, catch and accumulate but unable to participate in more meaningful self-narration. It is not that the game is lawless, notwithstanding, anxieties in the semiosphere about users trespassing or engaging in criminal behaviour. Rather the game is over structured and highly limited, both within its game-play which is repetitive and impulsive, and in its absence of narrative. Unlike the classic Nintendo Pokémon games which are within the role-playing game genre, Pokémon GO abstracts the seeing, moving, catching and accumulating features of the classic games without the overarching narrative, questing and competition. In this Pokémon GO manifests the transformation of the liberal legal subject of capitalism to the neoliberal subject of a digital orientated hypercapitalism where seeing, moving, catching and accumulating is immediate and impulsive, obliterating the ‘prudent’ subject participating in their own self-narration.
... Examples of kansei values that have been widely applied to products are enjoyment, coolness, and user friendliness. Kawaii is also considered as one kansei value that denotes such positive connotations as cute, lovable, and charming and plays an important role in the worldwide success of many products, such as Hello Kitty [3] and Pokemon [4]. Based on this success, we believe that kawaii will be a key factor for future product design and development. ...
Kansei values are important factors in manufacturing in Japan. Kawaii, which is a positive adjective that denotes such positive meanings as cute or lovable, becomes even more important as a kansei value. Some research has evaluated kawaii feelings by various biological signals. However, since no detailed eye tracking has been conducted yet, we employed it to identify the relationship between kawaii feelings and eye movements. We previously performed an experiment on preferences in which participants chose their favorite kawaii illustrations from six choices. However, we could not perform detailed analysis due to the complexity of the eye movements and the calibration-free data. Therefore, we improved our experiment method by randomly showing only two illustrations at a time from the six choices. From our analyzed results, we clarified the relationship between kawaii feelings and eye movements and identified two new indexes.
According to their most popular definition, cozy games are characterized by visual softness and relaxing gameplay devoid of combat and time-sensitive gameplay. However, with the recent increase in popularity of these games, game developers started to experiment with genre hybridity, introducing games that combine the elements of coziness with non-cozy elements such as difficult combat or horror themes, showing a need for critical engagement with the working definition of what is cozy. The article proposes a concept of dark cozy games to describe those titles that introduce visual softness and, to some degree, ludic safety to horror or Gothic, using three examples to illustrate different ways in which that can be achieved: Cult of the Lamb, Dredge, and Oxenfree.
Questo lavoro è dedicato a enucleare quali sono gli elementi chiave per la creazione
di una brand personality e nello specifico al settore della ristorazione giapponese, una categoria di attività che ha visto negli ultimi anni una crescita esponenziale sul suolo italiano. Nel dettaglio analizzeremo come gli elementi semantici, tipografici e cromatici che vanno a comporre le insegne dei ristoranti giapponesi nel capoluogo toscano di Firenze e i suoi dintorni possano essere veicolo di elementi evocativi che rimandano al Giappone.
Despite lacking clear historical significance, the appeal pandas have to the people of China has played an integral role in the emergence of the country's cultural identity and ideals. Few studies have explored the giant panda due to the ongoing dialogue between the West and China, which, according to Edward Said, is permeated with imperialist, colonial, and orientalist flavors. In 1869, the French missionary Armand David encountered a dead specimen of a giant panda in Baoxing, Sichuan, which sparked the beginning of this dialogue. David shipped the skin to Paris, where the animal was named and aesthetically recreated for the first time for Western audiences. In this paper, we approach the giant panda as a dark tourism attraction embodying a process of making and remaking Chinese national identities over the past two centuries. Using “virtual curating” to study the Giant Panda Museum located at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, we demonstrate that the giant panda, which has achieved iconic status in China, represents a national history that is dark, backward, and based on suffering and death. We argue that understanding the giant panda's history as a dark tourism attraction provides an ethical vantage point from which to perceive tourist-panda relationships.
This chapter examines videogames with toylike avatars, including Pikmin 3, FallGuys, Scribblenauts Unlimited, and the LittleBigPlanet series. I consider how these player characters shape childlike subject positions for players, while also exploring latent transgressive scripts that invite players to engage in destructive roughhousing. I use the puzzle-platform videogame Unravel to introduce the relationship between sensory nostalgia and spectral nostalgia. I argue that videogames can invite players to travel along their own developmental timelines and experience a sense of co-location with their childselves. I conclude by comparing the spatialisation of childhood to the spatialisation of play as a ‘magic circle’, drawing attention to shared qualities of liminality, porousness, and plasticity.
In modern society, robots have been increasingly involved in human lives in various scenarios. As a future society with human-robot interaction is approaching, it is important to consider how to develop robots that give positive impressions for a variety of users. Based on an Affective Engineering approach, affective values can strengthen the impact of the first impressions of products. Kawaiiness is one affective value that can be a key factor in developing robots with positive impressions. In this research, we carried out a collaborative project to design and develop kawaii robot prototypes in virtual spaces by American and Japanese university students. We then performed an experiment on affective evaluation of those robots using 10 adjectives: kawaii/cute, approachable, scary, trustworthy, cool, beautiful, polite, comfortable, and soft. We previously presented our statistical analysis results for the adjective “kawaii/cute.” However, the results of other adjectives, which potentially have effects on the robot impression, have not been presented yet. Therefore, in this paper, we present our further analysis of several adjectives to clarify their relationship with kawaii/cute and robot features across genders and cultures. In addition, we statistically analyzed the effects of robot pairs, adjectives, genders, and cultures. The results suggest that robots with features such as more animal-like, rounder, and shorter tend to increase positive impressions such as kawaii, approachability, beauty, comfortable, and softness. Also, we found no difference across gender and culture for the impressions on kawaii robots, which shows the possibility of expanding the concept of kawaii robots worldwide.KeywordsKawaiiRobotVirtual SpaceCross-culture
Die vorliegende Untersuchung entwickelt sich aus der grundlegenden Fragestellung, ob mediale Artikulation, die sich als bewusste Explikation individueller implizit-qualitativer Erfahrungen in symbolischen Medien auszeichnet, nicht nur aus der anthropologischen bzw. bildungstheoretischen Perspektive, sondern auch aus einer machttheoretischen Perspektive interpretiert werden kann. Um diese Fragestellung zu diskutieren, werden zentrale Begriffe wie neoliberale Gouvernementalität, Selbsttechnologien aus den Spätwerken Foucaults und Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie, mediale neoliberal-gouvernementale Selbsttechnologien aus den Arbeiten von G. Franck, H. Bublitz und A. Reckwitz thematisiert. Aus dieser theoretischen Arbeit wird die zentrale These der vorliegenden Untersuchung formuliert, dass mediale Artikulation als Form der medialen neoliberal-gouvernementalen Selbsttechnologie verstanden wird. Für die empirische Überprüfung dieser formulierten zentralen These wird ein konkretes Forschungsthema ausgewählt, in diesem Fall die sogenannte „Aegyo-Inszenierung“, die man als bewusste Inszenierung des Selbst als eine niedliche bzw. kindliche Person versteht. Daraufhin werden 198 Profilbilder auf Facebook mit dem Aegyo-Repertoire von Pädagogik-Studierenden an einer südkoreanischen Universität nach dem Geschlecht des Abgebildeten klassifiziert und miteinander verglichen. Für die Geltungsüberprüfung werden sie zusätzlich mit den öffentlichen Pressefotografien weiblicher, südkoreanischer Prominenter verglichen. Durch diese empirische Untersuchung mit der Bildanalyse bzw. dem -vergleich kann resultiert werden, dass mediale Artikulation am Beispiel von Profilbildern auf Facebook als Form der medialen neoliberal-gouvernementalen Selbsttechnologie verstanden werden kann, damit jede der Abgebildeten mithilfe der Aegyo-Inszenierung soziale Aufmerksamkeit von anderen Personen im medialen Raum erregt. Dabei fungiert der Körper des jeweiligen Abgebildeten für die Aegyo-Inszenierung als Humankapital, um soziale Aufmerksamkeit zu erlangen. Zusätzlich kann aus dieser empirischen Untersuchung noch eine weitere These der vorliegenden Untersuchung formuliert werden, dass das Aegyo-Phänomen in Südkorea als ein Beispiel der ökonomisierten Transformation der tradierten idealen Weiblichkeit verstanden wird. Im Prozess der Modernisierung der südkoreanischen Gesellschaft fungieren Schwäche, Passivität, Gehorsamkeit, Niedlichkeit usw., welche jeweils als ideale Weiblichkeit in der traditionellen konfuzianischen Gesellschaft galten, immer weniger als Geschlechternorm, sondern vielmehr als Mittel für die Herstellung sozialer Aufmerksamkeit. In diesem Kontext inszenieren die weiblichen Abgebildeten sich selbst aus eigenem Antrieb als ideale Frau – nicht für die Erfüllung der tradierten Geschlechternorm, sondern um soziale Aufmerksamkeit zu erzeugen.
Drawing across game studies, childhood studies, and children’s literature studies, this thesis catalogues and critiques the representation of children in contemporary video games. It poses two questions: 1) How are children represented in contemporary video games? 2) In what ways do the representations of children in video games affirm or challenge dominant Western beliefs about the figure of the child? To answer these questions, I combine a large-scale content analysis of over 500 games published between 2009 and 2019 with a series of autoethnographic close readings. My content analysis is designed to provide a quantitative snapshot of the representation of children in games. I use statistical analysis to assemble data points as meaningful constellations. I use the axes of race, gender, and age, as well as genre, age-rating, and publication year, to identify patterns in representation. I distil my findings as a set of seven archetypes: The Blithe Child, The Heroic Child, The Human Becoming, The Child Sacrifice, The Side Kid, The Waif, and The Little Monster. This typology is not intended to work against the granular detail of the information recorded in the dataset, but to draw attention to patterns of coherence and divergence that occur between particular examples, as well as to intersections with representational tropes about children identified in other media. I select four of these seven archetypes to structure my autoethnographic close readings. While content analysis is a useful tool for documenting the presence, absence, and dominant function of child-characters in games, close reading allows for a more intersectional approach that can attend to the nuances of representation across identity markers, creating opportunities to examine internal contradictions, ironies, and the polysemy generated through interpretive gaps. I develop my own close reading method building on the autoethnographic approaches of Carr (2019), Vossen (2020), McArthur (2018), and Jennings (2021), which I call critical ekphrasis. Chapter one argues that the Blithe Child triangulates ‘children’, ‘toys’, and ‘paidia’. It suggests that both childhood and play can be conceptualised as a ‘magic circle’, and that the immateriality of the Blithe Child implies childhood can be a mode of being unconnected to anatomical markers or chronological age. Chapter two explores how the Heroic Child challenges the apparent affinity between video games and traditional hero 2 narratives. It argues that the dependence of the childly protagonist undermines dualistic thinking and instead celebrates cooperation, compromise, and connection. Chapter three compares the Child Sacrifice to the woman-in-the-refrigerator trope, arguing that it functions to justify aggressive, hypermasculine, militarised violence. The final chapter compares the Little Monster and the Waif to examine how the uncanny child raises metareferential questions about autonomy in interactive media and agency in intergenerational relationships. My research project concludes by suggesting that virtual children in simulated worlds point to the active construction and delimitation of ‘the child’ in society and can reveal that much of what is assumed to be natural, obvious, and universal about the figure of ‘the child’ is in fact ideological. It hints at the possibility that just as virtual children are used as rhetorical figures to explain and justify the rules, mechanics, and moral systems of a digital game, so too is the figure of ‘the child’ used to routinise and vindicate the rules, workings, and moral systems of Euro-American culture.
As we enter what scientists are calling the 6th mass extinction of life on this planet, we are forced to confront the prospect of a future world without animals. Despite the disappearance of ‘real’ animals in the wake of global ecocatastrophe however, animals proliferate in the ‘Anthropocene’ imaginary, and in particular, through contemporary video games as they reimagine the future relationship of humans and animal life increasingly withdrawn from the lives of humans. The animal imagined in video games herein serves not only to re-join the animal to a culture that has no more room for nature, but to preserve the animal as a sign of our status and significance on a rapidly changing planet. Herein, the surgical remaking of animals within video games constitutes an augury on the future status of the animal and the preservation of its existence via simulation, where it is yet made to labor in the psychical models of liberalism and humanism intimate to the conceits of Anthropocene thinking. Drawing largely from the scholarship of Jean Baudrillard (1994) and his developments on the transmutation of animals from ontological equal to hyperreal companion, this essay will analyze a number of contemporary video games (e.g. Fallout, the Outer Worlds) in which hyperreal animal companions are prominently featured. Following, the essay will aim to articulate the hyperreal reformatting of animality as both an index of our contemporary relationship with non-humans and as a mode of responding to the threat of extinction in the Anthropocene era.
This article examines video game avatars that are designed to resemble toys. It names this trope the ‘Blithe Child’ to capture the carefree, careless and childlike interactions this avatar invites. This article argues that the connection between the Blithe Child and traditional toys functions to express and explain non-violent game mechanics, to shape sentimental player–avatar relationships, to create cosy, snug playspaces and to encourage pro-social, creative and self-expressive playstyles. However, the Blithe Child inherits some of the more sinister dynamics latent in human–toy relationships, namely the desire to humiliate and mutilate the cute object and anxieties about what it means to be ‘real’ – to be an independent, agential subject rather than a passive, manipulated, othered object. Drawing on theories derived from cuteness studies and toy studies, this article uses a close reading approach to critique the age-based hierarchies that underpin this trope.
As robots have been increasingly involved in human lives I modern society, it is necessary to further develop the robots that give positive impression to human. Therefore, we pursued a collaborative project in which Japanese and American university students designed and developed kawaii robots. Before and after the collaborative work, preferences of kawaii attributes were also evaluated by a questionnaire. As a result, we obtained eight different robot pairs. In addition, we performed cluster analysis using the questionnaires on kawaii preferences and obtained clusters of participants before and after the collaborative work. Finally, we analyzed the relationship between robot designs and the clustering results. The cluster analysis shows that more than half of the participants did not change their kawaii preferences, while some of them did especially those who did not have preconceived images of kawaii robots. Therefore, we concluded that participants developed a deeper understanding about kawaii after collaborating on this project about the diversity of opinions people have about the concept of kawaii.
Vi bruger smartteknologi og applikationer (apps) til underholdning, nyheder, fysisk aktivitet og social kontakt som aldrig før og kommer samtidig sjældnere ud i naturen. Det er et problem, fordi naturoplevelser styrker vores psykiske og fysiske trivsel. Hvordan kan vi støtte de yngre generationers mulighed for naturoplevelser? Kan vi fx bruge selvsamme smartteknologi? Forskning på området, der kobler børn, smartteknologi og naturoplevelser, er endnu meget sparsom (se dog Änggård, 2015, Smith & Dunkley, 2018; Adams m.fl., 2017; Land m.fl., 2019; Dunkley & Smith, 2019).
Denne rapport formidler forskning fra første del (Statusdel) af projektet Naturlig Teknik, støttet af Nordea-fonden, der over en femårig periode (2018-2022) og i tre dele undersøger, hvordan især smartteknologi kan bidrage til, at børn og unge (6-18 år) får naturoplevelser.
Rapporten henvender sig til alle, der er interesseret i naturoplevelser til børn og unge og brug af teknologi, fx forældre, pædagoger, lærere, naturforvaltere, naturvejledere og udviklere, der kobler teknologi og natur.
Monsters of Modernity explores the contemporary human condition through a selection of globally iconic monsters. In each chapter, the authors explore monsters for what they reveal about the world in which we live and for the ways that they enable us to address critical issues facing humanity. Although monsters might be feared and thought of as threatening, the authors show how each monster brings us to a deeper appreciation of various aspects of our troubled world, from gender relations, to the lasting impacts of colonisation, to neoliberalism, to the fragility of humanity’s place in the world in the Anthropocene.
Monsters of Modernity explores new ground in the conventions of authorship and scholarship, including through the highly personal and subjective perspectives in each chapter, and even the absence of an Introduction. This book will be a valuable companion to anyone interested in the study of monsters as well as those seeking engaging ways to explore and teach key global issues.
Join the authors as they explore the critical condition of our age through their explorations of Chimera, Leviathan, Vampires, Bunyips, Predator and the Xenomorph Alien, Pokémon, Dragons, and Godzilla.
Kawaii has drawn the attention of people both in and out of Japan. In order to investigate Kawaii semantics and find typical Kawaii design features, we conducted a survey of Kawaii semantics and an experiment to verify the findings of the survey. The survey finds Kawaii semantics from visual, acoustic, tactile, movement and emotional aspects. Explorative factor analysis is conducted to find typical factors and to establish a six-dimensional model of Kawaii semantics. The experiment is based on the survey and intends to examine the effects of Kawaii factors on Kawaii design of furniture, household appliances and robots. The results indicate that roundness is effective to make all three products Kawaii. Interaction effects between factors are significant, indicating that Kawaii is integrated but not simply aggregated by Kawaii features. Kawaii design guidelines are put forward from the results to improve design efficiency and improve user experience in Kawaii design in the future. This research for the first time fuses Kawaii features from multiple aspects and provides a structural foundation for further study of Kawaii design.
Affective values are important factors in manufacturing in Japan. Kawaii, an affirmative adjective that denotes such positive meanings as cute or lovable, has become even more critical as an affective value and is playing a leading role in the worldwide success of many products, including Hello Kitty and Pokemon. Based on this success, we believe that kawaii will be a key factor in future product design. In our previous research, we constructed a model of kawaii feelings for cosmetic bottles and identified candidates of effective attributes to design kawaii cosmetic bottles. In this research, we used our model to clarify the relationship among kawaii feelings, attributes, eye movement indexes, and prediction results. Our results clarified the effective attributes for designing kawaii cosmetic bottles and the effectiveness of our model.
As we enter what scientists are referring to as the 6th mass extinction of life on this planet, we increasingly find ourselves in a world without animals. Despite the disappearance of animals in the wake of such ecotastrophe, however, animals proliferate in the popular imaginary of the Anthropocene. This chapter argues that such proliferation conspires in another mode of disappearance through which animality is purged of monstrosity and habituated according to the ambit of human desire. In an attempt to articulate the double-disappearance of animality, this essay attempts to engage with the worldwide phenomenon of Pokémon GO as it seemingly constitutes both an index of our contemporary relationship with nonhumans and a mode of responding to the threat of extinction in the Anthropocene era.
Pokémon Go is a free-to-play, location-based mobile game that can be downloaded on smartphones. It created a sudden craze around the world in the summer of 2016. The popularity of Pokémon Go offers a golden opportunity for marketers. The objective of this study is to use Pokémon Go as a case study to outline the marketing challenges facing a free-to-play mobile game.
While contemporary superheroes are typically depicted in comic books and feature films as grim and gritty characters involved in violent adventures, the last decade has witnessed an increasingly prominent trend of cute superheroes emerging in popular culture. Infantile, Cherub-like cute superheroes circulate in comic books, animated video, toys and a range of merchandising products. The aesthetic of cute superheroes implies an inversion of the core attributes typically associated with superheroes: weak not strong, small not big, round not muscular, etc. The cute aesthetic inspires an effective response in readers/consumers of protectionism and possessability that reflects cultural beliefs about superheroes as symbolic of childhood innocence and play.
Affective values are important factors in manufacturing. Kawaii, which is a positive adjective that denotes such positive connotations as cute, lovable, and charming, becomes even more important as an affective value. It plays an important role in the success of many products, such as Hello Kitty and Pokemon. Based on this success, we believe that kawaii will be a key factor for future product design. In our previous study, we performed a comparison of 39 spoon designs based on kawaiiness for Japanese and Thai. As a result, we clarify the similarities and differences of kawaii preferences between Thai and Japanese. From this result, we suggested the design ideas of kawaii spoons to spoon manufacturers. However, the results might not be applicable to evaluate kawaii spoon designs in general. In this study, we proposed models of kawaii feelings for spoon designs which can be used to evaluate the kawaiiness of spoon designs in general. We also clarified useful attributes for kawaii spoon designs. The results suggested the list of attributes to be considered in the design of kawaii spoons.
KeywordsKansei engineeringAffective valueKawaiiSpoon designs
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