In recent years, Japan's kawaii culture has exploded in popularity. WSJ's Eric Bellman speaks with author Manami Okazaki about how cuteness has gained a global fanbase.

In Japan, ‘cute’ is a big deal. Their own word for it, kawaii (“ka-why-ee”), is more of an ethos than an adjective. Shops and billboards are filled with big-eyed fluffy figures.

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Richard Magarey, better known as Ladybeard, is a cross-dressing pro wrestler and a heavy metal singer from Adelaide who’s made it big in Japan ... He dubs his genre as Kawaii Metal (or ...