I clearly recall my first trip to Japan. I arrived at Narita Airport after a 15 hour flight, having slept very little because I was so excited to actually get there. It was still rolling through my ...

"Gross" characters are proliferating in a country known for kawaii, and now even local governments' mascots are trying to out-weird one another. Long considered the global capital of cute, Japan is ...

From Sanrio characters to starry-eyed idol singers, it’s no secret that kawaii (“cute”) culture is huge in Japan. Whole museums and theme parks have been dedicated to the concept of kawaii. Heck, it’s ...

Tokyo’s Harajuku district is getting a major injection of chaos and colour. Kawaii Monster Land, a new underground amusement park inspired by Japan’s cult kawaii culture, is set to open beneath ...

Japan’s women are being held back by pressure from men to be cute, rather than capable, the wife of Japan’s prime minister said in an interview. "Men’s thinking has not changed," 54-year-old Akie Abe ...

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or ...

Providing an in-depth overview of all things kawaii (cute), this book traces the cute aesthetic from its inception in the 1970s as a schoolgirl trend to its position as a leading cultural norm, and ...

It doesn’t take long for it to feel like the diminutive RoBoHoN robot is showing off. Not only does it walk, talk, recognise and respond to what you say. It has a projector in its head, so it can show ...

Simply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox. In the late 1970s, British inventor James Dyson painstakingly refined his design for a new, improved vacuum cleaner.

The fluffy replicas prove extremely popular, especially at the country’s prestigious Japan Cup race meeting. “At the Tokyo Racecourse on the Japan Cup day, they sold about 1,350 figures and the total ...