Anyone who knows me also knows about my predisposition for all things cute. I’m talking dubious combinations of polka dots with more polka dots, equally garish choices of fifty shades of cute in nail polish form, and a baby animal diary I whip out whenever scheduling is needed, expelling any remaining traits of an even vaguely serious student. Oh and then there are the schoolgirl plaits, but let’s not dwell into my hairstyle any further…

In Japan, though, I’m very much in the lower range of the cuteness scale: ribbons in hair, bows on shoes and bags and the omnipresence of Gudetama products (a cutefied egg that spends its days being lazy). You name it, it’s cute and it’s accepted. Or, as Japanese put it, it’s all about kawaii.

Now, I’m not expecting my linguistics supervisors to be reading this and ticking off all the brownie points for infiltrating my subject into Varsity, but the concept of kawaii deserves some linguistic clarification. It’s not, in fact, a direct translation of English ‘cute’, but rather refers in a wider sense to anything that stirs up feelings of love, care, and protectiveness – hence the mirroring of the physical features of children and baby animals in everything kawaii from human make-up to new level one Pokémon. Just think of Hello Kitty: a chubby, mouthless and helpless kitten who cannot speak for herself (okay, I get it, cats rarely do) – isn’t that just adooooorable? As such, kawaii isn’t about perfection, either. Cuteness can be found in imperfections, whether it be a baby animal’s inability to speak or a kawaii trend-setter’s probably not-so-accidentally drooping sock.

“Great to hear you’ve done your research”, I hear you say. “But honestly, so what? Kids’ toys being cute is hardly news?”

The thing is, kawaii permeates Japanese society much beyond Pokémon, tamagotchis, and Hello Kitty. Governmental and political life get called many things in England, but ‘cute’ is rarely one of them. How would you have felt about a wide-eyed Brexit Bear? I thought not.

However, in Japan, each of the country’s 47 governmental offices has a kawaii mascot. Kumamon, a rosy-cheeked bear-like creature, was created to draw tourists to Kumamoto Prefecture, and ended up having an economic effect of 124.4 billion yen on the prefecture in two years. You can find the Kumamon brand on everything from biscuits to hotels, trains, and even Japan Airline’s special ‘Air Kumamon’ package for international flights.

In Funabashi, on the other hand, the humanised pear Funassyi has become an unofficial emblem of the city. Unlike ordinary pears, Funassyi speaks and enjoys heavy metal. What’s even more impressive for a piece of fruit is that, since its creation in 2011, Funassyi has gone on to release an album and several singles, to feature in its own anime show and to open a character goods store, while appearing regularly in official events for both Funabashi and surrounding regions as well as all of Japan.

As well as spreading into all societal spheres, kawaii is also taking on new depths with an impressive range of new subgenres. You can find everything from guro-kawaii (grotesque cute) to ero-kawaii (erotic cute) and busu-kawaii (ugly cute). It has also become a form of modern art (not saying your Hello Kitty phone charm isn’t the finest instance of postmodernism, but still…) with influences from the creepier subgenres. The contemporary artist Takashi Murakami depicts seemingly joyful things like cartoon mushrooms in his paintings, which at a closer inspection recall darker things like the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So much for cute being just for kids.

Nor are the roots of kawaii in anything superficial like children’s toys. The onslaught of saucers for eyes, dolled-up kittens and governmental mascots is traced back to post-WWII Japan and a need to find a sense of individuality and playfulness in an otherwise serious and depersonalised environment. Given that need, kawaii culture properly kicked off in the 1970s, but not with the bling it is associated with today but rather something as mundane as – sorry to disappoint – handwriting.

For whatever reason school girls get excited about things like handwriting (I’m not judging; I certainly spent most of my maths classes perfecting my signature font). They were blown away by a frenzy of writing in a rounder, more childlike, and – you guessed it – generally cuter style: think added hearts and cartoon faces, stylised lines and some Latin text thrown in for good measure. Schools were quick to ban the new style (just as my class teacher banned my new style of ‘s’), but advertisers were equally quick to incorporate it into their marketing for added young-person appeal. With Sanrio’s Hello Kitty launched in 1974, and now valued at $7 billion, it is a no-brainer to guess who won.

Judge my polka dots and my collection of Hello Kitty accessories growing at a worryingly exponential rate, but I don’t care – and because I’m aiming to be childlike and innocent, I won’t even mention my annoyance. It’s just me bringing a sense of individuality into the depersonalized environment that is Cambrigde. Case closed (and wrapped up with a pink ribbon and sealed with a Kumamon seal)