Kawaii vs Shōjo Manga
カワイイ / 少女漫画
Kawaii comes from Pop and Shōjo Manga from Illustration Styles. One is aesthetic and the other style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Kawaii
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Japan's aesthetic of round contours, big eyes, pastel and looseness that summons the urge to protect. From girls' handwriting and fancy goods it softened the surface of an entire society, from public signage to corporate mascots.
Shōjo Manga
A field that built its own grammar for translating psychology into space. Panels are broken open, flowers and stars scatter across the background, and the inner voice runs out into the margins. The large eyes and the overlaid panels are devices for drawing the flow of feeling rather than the flow of time.
| Kawaii | Shōjo Manga | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1970s– | 1950s– |
| Family | Pop | Illustration Styles |
| Kind | Aesthetic | Style |
| Cues | Faces of circles and empty space / Big eyes, elided mouths / Pastel softness / Looseness and defenselessness | Figures and panels that cross the frame / Flowers and light streaming through the background / Eyes drawn large and worked in detail / Monologue spilling into the margins |
| Best used for | Guidance and warnings for children or beginners that must not frighten · Designing a municipal or corporate mascot meant to last for decades | Drawing the flow of feeling in space rather than in time · Letting inner monologue share the page with the image |
| Type | Rounded gothic, wide letterforms, even stroke weight | Let hand lettering and monologue run into the white space outside the panels. |
| Composition | One large face centered, space kept clear all around it | Overlap panels and place figures breaking through the frame lines. |
| Material | Desaturated pastel and white, matte rather than glossy | Make light by layering screentone and cutting out white. |
| Caution | Assuming that bigger eyes and paler color make something cute loses the tension in the contour and leaves only a slack face. | Borrowing the eyes and the flowers ends in mere signs. The structure of the panels is what carries the emotion. |