Model of Kawaii Spoon Evaluations by Thai and Japanese

Affective values are critical factors for manufacturing in Japan. The significance of kawaii, which is a positive adjective that denotes such connotations as cute, lovable, and charming, continues to grow as an affective value, especially since it plays an important role in the success of such brands as Hello Kitty and Pokemon. Based on this success, we believe that kawaii will be a key factor for future product design. Kawaii culture is popular not only in Japan but also in many other Asian countries including Thailand. However, it remains unclear how closely the impressions of kawaii perceived by Thai people resemble those of Japanese people. Therefore, we compared 39 spoon designs based on Japanese and Thai feelings about kawaiiness and clarified the similarities and differences of these designs, which provided some design ideas for kawaii spoons. Since our results might not be applicable to evaluate general kawaii spoon designs, we constructed models of kawaii feelings with which to evaluate the kawaiiness of the spoon designs and clarified useful attributes.