That it cocky, in-your-face cuteness of one’s cutie menhera symbolizes what Sharon Kinsella (1995) phone calls a sexy Brasiliansk jenter great “rebellious, individualistic, freedom-looking to emotions” (p
Though it pursue brand new discussion of one’s phenomenal girl style, the latest cutie menhera smartly inhibits traditionally simple kawaii society with regards to encapsulation regarding rational anxiety and re also-appropriation from care about-burns. It is neither a red-colored-flag manifestation of intellectual morbidity nor a motion of social control, but an easy technique of enchanting conversion so you’re able to beat worst spirits/mental illness. New menhera girls commonly angry otherwise deranged, just like the mental illness might have been detached and you will externalized since the villains and it’s its purpose given that justice fighters so you’re able to defeat the newest worst. As opposed to romanticizing or pathologizing notice-injury, it quietly slashed their possession to-do their job.
At the same time, this new practitioners away from yami-kawaii style refuse the brand new properties of scientific model one to casts self-burns off while the a personal-apparent manifestation of pathology
From the beginning, this new cutie menhera story could have been with a different sort of material culture. Ezaki Bisko has generated various reputation merchandise offering Menhera Red and you may fellow arm cut fighters as 2014. Many of the frilly, pastel-colored outfits and you will kitsch accessories bring provocative messages like “destroy you,” “sick,” otherwise “death” symbolizing brand new duality of yami kawaii aesthetic (Refinery29, 2018). One of several Menhera-chan gift ideas, probably the most debatable are brand new “risuka bangle” (wrist-slash wristband) one emulated gaping injuries considering mind-cutting. Produced by an enthusiastic indie brand Conpeitou in concert with Ezaki within the , the fresh wristband is sold out rapidly. The company upcoming made a statement out of a resale into the Twitter inside a beneficial). But not, this time around they brought about a violent storm out of issue for the social networking, resulting in quick discontinuation of your unit (Conpeitou, 2015b). To your business’s blog, the brand new designer said that they, as well, got a long-name expertise in mind-injury and apologized to people have been offended of the suggestion out of managing care about-injury because a manner product (Conpeitou, 2015b).
While, the fresh new hand-slash bracelet or any other Menhera-chan gift suggestions has actually empowered complaint once the trivializing care about-injury and other “serious” things at the rear of new operate, the idea of wearable/removable self-incisions paradoxically implies the latest subversive potential out of sweet looks. From the cutie menhera trope, the yami-kawaii outfits and jewellery could work once the a sugar-coating level to speak one’s internal turmoil and you will public problems into the a playful and you may overstated style. Drawing awareness of its superficial materiality, the fresh new cutie menhera takes on effectiveness an excellent “symptomatic” discovering, which assumes on a great text’s truest definition is not immediately apprehensible and you can must be revealed by an expert interpreter (Best and you will ). Against the medico-political suggestion that there must be a beneficial “real” matter hidden below one’s care about-burns off, new hand-slash wristband decrease mind-injury to the newest depthless facial skin, which makes it commodifiable, consumable, which means manageable human anatomy function with the brand new facade away from cuteness.
229) of Japanese kawaii culture. not, whereas Kinsella (1995) places a focus with the infantile, escapist measurement out-of kawaii because of the equating becoming lovely which have performing childlike, Menhera Red and you may arm reduce fighters do competitive public reviews using the soft combat mental disease (evil spirits). The newest markings and injuries would-be read because the a removable accessary, in place of unwelcome scratches regarding private morbidity. Regarding your subversive prospective regarding lovable, Brzozowska-Brywczynska (2007) contends that sweet graphic embodies new Foucauldian heterotopia-“the area outside of the standard, the site away from vanguard possibility to alter, to share an option purchase, where the coherence between terms and you may reality is no longer it is possible to, in which the contradiction was structuring signal” (p. 225). As good heterotopic getting, the cutie menhera will get carry out the agentic worry about of the pushing right back resistant to the pathologization much time of feminine worry about-injury.