This is what I loved about Penn State! We really studied important topics, such as pop culture in a serious way! (I was there when Keene paintings on velvet were all the rage. I resisted!)

The cuteness issue is not just in Japan. Korea has opened an office of its new KOCCA ... Korea Overseas Culture and Content Agency ... in L.A. The office promotes cute Korean cartoon characters mimicking the kawaii (pronounced ka-wa-ee, by the way, like manga is pronounced maa-n-ga). It's perhaps the success of Pokeman (pronounced pok-ee mon developed from Japanese pop loan words meaning POcket-MONster).

The procilvity for the creation of characters to reprsent geographical areas, businesses, nonprofit organizations, etc. is rampant in Korea (as it is in Japan) for consumption by the locals, not just for export.

Putting a face on it is a tried and true marketing tool, used with aplomb by movie companies that have of late exposed a lot of the narrative of their latest opus through the introduction of the characters, albeit out of order (unless one can figure out which route to take home thereby to read bus shelter posters in "order".)

Iconography is at the root of this practice. how many plaster virgins on front lawns and plastic jesuses on the dashboards of cars? (There's a fun song from the 60s about this ...)

Thanks for a great program.