Ado Mizumori (水森亜土, Mizumori Ado) is a multi-talented artist, illustrator, singer, actress, tv personality, and author who rose to fame during the early postwar period and is still quite popular in Japan today. Affectionately known to her fans as Ado-chan, she was one of a few new female kawaii artists who became popular during the 1960s, each adding their unique, distinctively feminine style to the kawaii art world. Mizumori is particularly known for adding in a dash of romance with a hint of sexiness to her fun and flirty illustrations.
Mizumori was born in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo in 1939 (same part of town as Takehisa Yumeji’s first kawaii goods store!). After failing to get into art school, Mizumori took a gap year to study abroad in Hawaii. While her main purpose was to study English, it was really the beach-bum island-hippy lifestyle and introduction to jazz music that would prove to be quite influential for both her art and music careers. Upon returning to Japan, Mizumori started to get involved in acting and performance art. In 1964 she joined the Mirai Gekijo Theatre Troupe. Around that same time, she also landed a gig on NHK’s popular children’s program ‘Tanoshii Kyoushitsu’ (楽しい教室、trans: fun classroom), where she would sing fun songs for kids while drawing illustrations with both hands on an acrylic board. You have to watch to appreciate the mix of fun and talent that truly defines Ado-chan!
In addition to being a charming performer and TV talent, Mizumori’s illustrations also started to gain in popularity during the 1960s. She made her debut in the world of fancy goods with coaster designs and was soon after commissioned to create a line of illustrative handkerchiefs by the popular scarf store Marca. Her use of bright colors and fun playful images were quite popular with girls and women of all ages and Mizumori’s illustrations were soon being featured on stationery goods and in magazine illustrations. She was also hired by the popular Shojo magazine, Nakayoshi, to design limited-edition furoku.
Mizumori’s distinctive illustrative style featured bright colors and a playful mix of fun and flirty. Earlier kawaii illustrators starting with Takehisa Yumeji and continuing with Nakahara Junichi and Naito Rune focused on cuteness while avoiding any touch of sexuality. Sexiness and romance were seen as taboo to the innocent cuteness these artists were trying to express. Mizumori’s illustrations tended to feature cute girls with oversized heads giving them a sense of toddler-size innocence not so different from Rune or Matsumoto. However, Mizumori’s girls would often have flowing blond hair, full lips, and a cute round bum peeking out of a tiny dress or skimpy bikini contrasting with that sense of innocence. Additionally, Mizumori would often add in that touch of romance by including boy characters and even throwing in a little kiss!
Mizumori has stated that she wanted to express the mutually contrasting concepts of the cuteness of immaturity and the sexiness of maturity at the same time. The popularity of Mizumori s illustrations demonstrates that these contrasting messages resonated with her target audience of young women, who could probably relate more to the duality of cute versus sexy than the pure innocence in earlier kawaii illustrations.
In addition to her cute and sassy girls, another popular character of Mizumori was an orange cat named Mii-tan, one of the first Sanrio characters! In the early 1960s, Mizumori was approached by Sanrio’s founder Shintaro Tsuji to work as an illustrator for his budding new company, Yamanashi Silk Company (which would later adopt the name Sanrio in 1973). In 1962, Tsuji had released a line of strawberry pattern goods which flew off the shelves. Tsuji could see the market potential in adding kawaii designs to his products. Unable to repeat this initial success with a line of cheery theme goods the following year, he knew he needed to call in the experts and started hiring popular illustrators to assist with product design. One of the things unique about Tsuji was that he hired almost exclusively female illustrators, including Mizumori (obviously this business decision was quite successful, but that is a story for a different post!). Following Tsuji’s suggestion to design a cute cat, Mizumori created “Mii-tan” and the ceramic figure released in 1965 was an instant hit. Sanrio would release more than 50 products featuring Mii-tan, and you can still find Mii-tan popping up here and there in Mizumori’s illustrations.
By the end of the 60s, Mizumori had clearly cemented her place within the kawaii art world and Japanese pop culture. Over the next decades, Mizumori would continue to enjoy success with both her art and music career. Despite being in her 80s, she has continued to be the poster girl for Mirai Gekijo Theatre Troupe, and you can still catch a performance of her singing jazz at their nightclub in Tokyo. Mizumori has continued to produce illustrations and also paintings, which are commonly displayed in Exhibits around Japan.
Mizumori has also published several books focusing on her art and also her biography and life story. Charting her own path in the competitive art world during a time when few women were able to rise to the top, Mizumori was able to use her creativity and distinctive style to revolutionize how the world saw kawaii images and show that cute can be sexy. Since Mizumori, female artists have continued to add their own bit of sexiness to their kawaii illustration leading to the subcategory of kawaii call Ero-kawaii (エロ可愛い, literally “erotic cute”).
You can check out more about Mizumori Ado on her own Instagram and Website.
