Shizuka Fujioka. Misako Aoki. Yu Kimura are officially Toyko's Ambassadors of Cute.
Your reaction to this [if you care] probably has more to do with your definition of CUTE. Some YBNBY readers have debated these girls cuteness credentials. As have the readers over at Neatorama.
To fuel this discussion and to use it an excuse to show girls in costume, here's some other candidates of cuteness or Kawaii.
Cuteness in Japanese Culture, or Kawaii:
Since the 1970s, cuteness has become a prominent aspect of Japanese popular culture, entertainment, clothing, food, toys, personal appearance, behavior, and mannerisms. Foreign observers often find this cuteness either intriguing or revolting because the Japanese employ it in a vast array of situations and demographics where, in other cultures, it would be considered incongruously juvenile or frivolous.(via Wikipedia)
Could the following ladies compete for the ambassadorship of cute?
Cute in Black
Cute Anime Salesgirl
Cute Ronald McDonald
Cute School Girls
Blue Cute
The Cute Triplets
Cute Warrior
Cute Muppets
Cute Goth (kind of an oxymoron I know.)
Cute Twins
Doubly Cute
Aren't I Cute?
Cute Maid
Stumble This
Reddit!
Well... it ain't news for me...
Around here I see jerks dressed like these girls in a regular basis... I call this set of pictures "a usual Tuesday"...
There's a bunch of girls and boys who dresses like manga/video-game/anime characters, even to go to school. In the Japanese neighbourhood around here there are a lot of stores where they can pimp their outfits. If you go there in a Saturday or in a Sunday, you'll be a weirdo if you wear regular clothes... 85% of the people around there--I'm not counting the elders--are cute/cosplay dressers.
I just can't put up with it, in the level it has reach. Not only they dress like their preferred characters, but they ACT like them. And apparently they have the same 'sex-code' as the emos: "Everything is beautiful if done with innocent love..."
They express feelings in the same manner the anime characters do, guys make girlie gesture and facial expressions. Look like there are no male and female gender in there. Only the cute gender. Sexless, but even that, the girls have a jailbait look and the boys a gay look.
I'm not being prejudicial here, I'm based on a long term observation.
By the way, I keep going to the Japanese neighbourhood for obvious reasons: my wife is a descendant, and we go to the restaurants and groceries stores there... not to make a periodic immersion on the cute culture.
Well, I like it better than the Japanese porn I've seen. (Shudder)
Where are the The Cute Triplets belly buttons?! Nothing cute about that. They're cylons! Wait, do cylons have belly buttons?
Bob, they're wearing a spandex shirt, skin color... that's how they fake their wilderness...
Bummers.
Blue Cute... Rrrrrawr....
And hey, I got mentioned on Neatorama. Neat.