Pink Globalization

Hello Kitty's Trek across the Pacific

Christine R. Yano

• Publisher: Duke University Press Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780822353638, 9780822353515
• eBook ISBN: 9780822395881
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

In Pink Globalization, Christine R. Yano examines the creation and rise of Hello Kitty as a part of Japanese Cute-Cool culture. Yano argues that the international popularity of Hello Kitty is one aspect of what she calls pink globalization—the spread of goods and images labeled cute (kawaii) from Japan to other parts of the industrial world. The concept of pink globalization connects the expansion of Japanese companies to overseas markets, the enhanced distribution of Japanese products, and the rise of Japan's national cool as suggested by the spread of manga and anime. Yano analyzes the changing complex of relations and identities surrounding the global reach of Hello Kitty's cute culture, discussing the responses of both ardent fans and virulent detractors. Through interviews, Yano shows how consumers use this iconic cat to negotiate gender, nostalgia, and national identity. She demonstrates that pink globalization allows the foreign to become familiar as it brings together the intimacy of cute and the distance of cool. Hello Kitty and her entourage of marketers and consumers wink, giddily suggesting innocence, sexuality, irony, sophistication, and even sheer happiness. Yano reveals the edgy power in this wink and the ways it can overturn, or at least challenge, power structures.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments: Grabbing the Cat by Its Tail, or How the Cat Grabbed Me
• Introduction: Kitty — Japan — Global
• Chapter One. Kitty at Home: Kawaii Culture and the Kyarakutā Business
• Chapter Two. Marketing Global Kitty: Strategies to Sell Friendship and “Happiness”
• Chapter Three. Global Kitty: Here, There, Nearly Everywhere
• Chapter Four. Kitty Backlash: What’s Wrong with Cute?
• Chapter Five. Kitty Subversions: Pink as the New Black
• Chapter Six. Playing with Kitty: Serious Art in Surprising Places
• Chapter Seven. Japan’s Cute-Cool as Global Wink
• Appendix 1. Sanrio and Hello Kitty Timeline
• Appendix 2. Artists in Sanrio’s Hello Kitty: Thirtieth Anniversary Exhibit and Catalogue
• Notes
• References
• Index