Fetishized girls join Hello Kitty, Doreamon as “cute” Japanese ambassadors

Japan’s latest ambassadors in marketing are a young woman dressed as a schoolgirl, another as a Victorian doll in voluminous frilly skirts and a singer dressed in a polka dot shirt with a bunny print, offset by bouffant back-combed hair. They join the previously named ambassadors Hello Kitty and Doraemon as the latest weapons in the nations attempt to conquer the world with cute.

Faced with the prospect of being overtaken in both economic and military might by giant neighbor China, Japan has been making concerted efforts to boost its “soft power,” a strategy that analysts see as important. “You get people to love your culture and use that as a way of gaining power around the world,” said Phil Deans, professor of international relations at Temple University’s Tokyo campus “Whether this is a strategy on which the world’s second largest economy can base its diplomacy, I have yet to be convinced.”

School girls are a huge theme in Japan’s sexual psyche – any questions on that issue can be answered by this post over at Tokyo Mango.