Continuing along with my 2023 Japan trip kawaii exhibition round-up…next up is my adventure out to the ILF Douga Museum of Art (イルフ童画館) in Okaya, Nagano, aka the Takeo Takei memorial museum! Set in the Takeo’s hometown, this delightful little…
In the wake of the second world war, Japan took the world by surprise, emerging from the ashes with rapid development and economic growth, and rising to the world’s second-largest economy by the end of the 1960s. However, in 1990 the massive bubble economy that had been growing since the late 1980s finally burst, ushering in years of recession and economic stagnation, commonly referred to as the ‘lost decade.’ What does this mini economic lesson have to do with the history of San-X?!? Well, surprisingly, this part of Japanese history had a huge impact on the evolution of kawaii! Learn all about how the social impact of the lost decade ushered in a whole new world of kawaii and how San-X rose to meet this new demand!
While Kawaii as a modern concept didn’t begin until the 1970s, the roots of Kawaii can be traced back to the Taisho period (1912-1926), starting with artist, poet, and illustrator, Takeshisa Yumeji. Considered to be the godfather of kawaii, Takehisa was a leading figure of the Japanese Taisho Romanticism art movement, which combined current western art styles, such as Art Nouveau and Jugendstil, with Japanese artistic traditions.