Pink Globalization

Christine Yano is Professor and Chair of Anthropology at the University of Hawaii. She is the author of Airborne Dreams: "Nisei" Stewardesses and Pan American World Airways, also published by Duke University Press, Crowning the Nice Girl: Gender, Ethnicity, and Culture in Hawai'i's Cherry Blossom Festival, and Tears of Longing: Nostalgia and the Nation in Japanese Popular Song.

Preface and Acknowledgments. Grabbing the Cat by Its Tail, or How the Cat Grabbed Me Introduction. Kitty-Japan-Global 1. Kitty at Home: Kawaii Culture and the Kyarakuta Business 2. Marketing Global Kitty: Strategies to Sell Friendship and "Happiness" 3. Global Kitty: Here, There, and Nearly Everywhere 4. Kitty Backlash: What's Wrong with Cute? 5. Kitty Subversions: Pink as the New Black 6. Playing with Kitty: Serious Art in Surprising Places 7. 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

"Christine R. Yano's deep meditations on Hello Kitty provide us with dizzying detail while simultaneously explaining the allure of what is ostensibly only a childish character. Most studies on the circulation of Japanese popular culture take a macro view, looking at a spectrum of manga and anime as aspects of a cool cultural flow. Her achievement is to explore a specific commodity and its image, following the trajectory of Hello Kitty from Japan to the United States as she is created, produced, consumed and endlessly discussed." - Laura Miller, author of Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics "This is another absorbing study by one of our most accomplished anthropologists of Japan. Christine R. Yano's sophisticated formulation of Hello Kitty's pink globalization significantly advances our understanding of transnational popular culture flows. And it is great fun to read!" - William Kelly, coeditor of Fanning the Flames: Fandoms and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan