Pikachu was spotted fleeing the authorities in Antalya, Turkey, as quickly as his quick, bright arms had wiggle.
The person who donned the well-known Pokémon figure had been protesting the imprisonment of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, whose social group afterward wrote on X:” Pepper spray, which also affects Pikachu, didn’t do anything to you or me! # ResistPikachu.
The web was having a field day at the same time as another renowned Japanese anime film, using conceptual AI to recast popular memes, family photos, and movie scenes in a manner appropriate for the Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli.
Never mind that Hayao Miyazaki, a chairman and founder of Studio Ghibli, reportedly criticized AI-generated arts as” an affront to life itself.” The charm of beauty is demonstrated by both the popular Pikachu activist and the popular Studio Ghibli-style animations.
There’s more to charming than that, in my opinion.
Use political language to describe beauty. It may draw attention to injustices committed to the underprivileged. And it can increase the underdog’s assistance.
In the truest sense of the word, it’s a form of sweet energy.
Asia embraces the adorable
As a Chinese American, I’ve always been a longtime fan of East Asian culture’s cuteness, including adorable cartoon characters, adorable stationery, and even cute-looking food.
Now that I’ve studied cuteness, I’m interested in understanding what constitutes a” cute” and how it functions in politics and culture.
Japan is a well-known, endearing country with a lot of common, well-known, and adorable pop culture figures and products, especially after World War II, when Japanese animation, or anime, and a Japanese comics style called manga gained popularity.
Their narratives and aesthetics reached out to a nation that is still reeling from the disgrace of US job and the destruction caused by the nuclear bombs.
Using stories that were cheerful, upsetting, or a combination of both, Anime and manga used both futuristic and idealistic futures to process shared trauma.
Through grief, shame, and loss, pretty characters frequently guided audiences and readers. For instance, the six-year-old Gen’s activities are described in the comic” Barefoot Gen,” which details his survival from the Hiroshima attack.
Similar to” Tomb of the Fireflies,” a film from Studio Ghibli tells the tale of Seita and Setsuko, two younger siblings who are starving following the bombing of Kobe in World War II’s waning years. They are drawn because of their expressive faces and large eyes, which symbolize ignorance and impotence.
In the latter half of the 20th century, Studio Ghibli and the Pokémon company, along with other titan of beauty like Hello Kitty, who merely celebrated her 50th birthday, Doraemon, and well-known Nintendo figures Kirby and Yoshi, emerged.
South Asian cultures are now predominate due to charm.
Popular cartoon characters adorn the sides of Chinese trains, as well as green bunnies and small rice cookers, which are cute mascots for the city of Taipei.
The word “kawaii” refers to the lovely and lovable in Japan. This includes clothing and even talk, such as talking in a pout or speaking in a childish voice, as well as cartoon characters and velvet dolls.
You can learn beauty in the way celebrities often speak with a baby voice, breath out their cheeks, or bird their eyelashes in Asia when they flash heart symbols with their fingers, a gesture that originated in South Korea.
softer the snags
American culture is rooted in charm. However, it lacks Asia’s equivalent historical clout.
But to me, the Studio Ghibli memes that dominated British social media platforms revealed a common desire for affection at a time when the world seems particularly harsh, aggressive, and uncertain.
According to Sianne Ngai, a theoreticalist, cuteness is typically determined by the power gap between the observer and the cute object: A small kitten, a stuffed animal, or a crying baby are all cute in part because they’re so vulnerable.
I believe that’s why the White House’s attempts to get involved in the Ghibli memes failed. A Dominican woman was handcuffed by an ICE agent while her Instagram account posted a Ghibli-like image:
The portrayal sparked outrage. The cartoon assumes that the audience would enjoy punching down. Celebrating the powerful – the ICE agent and the U.S. government, rather than the powerless, is a perversion of how cuteness works. Compare the White House’s appearance to the” Grave of the Fireflies,” which highlighted the vulnerability of children during war.
Rallying in circles of cuteness
But paradoxically, cute characters can have powerful effects: Most people can’t help but cheer for a furry, yellow cartoon animal fleeing from riot police. A cute character can appear helpless, but it can show up in the crowd to support the brave.
Pikachu may have been present at two other protests, one of which was an anti-Trump rally in Washington, DC, on April 5, 2025, and another that was held the same day.
Cuteness has been used in Asia as a political tool, which is surprising. The Milk Tea Alliance, which was established in 2020, is a pro-democracy, pan-Asian movement that brings together people in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Myanmar, and other countries.
The effectiveness of cuteness and humor as a tool to condemn violence and denounce authoritarianism is pointedly highlighted by organizers. The movement’s online images feature cartoons of holding hands while holding Taiwan bubble tea, Thai cha, and Hong Kong milk tea in anime-style drawings of young student protestors.
Comedy can be obscene. Political cartoons and comedic performers, of course, have long tapped into this dynamic.
However, cuteness further defangs the power hungry by adding a whimsical absurdity. Is it any wonder that Chinese authorities forbade the release of a Winnie-the-Pooh movie after Xi Jinping-related memes went viral?
Despite having a cuddly, quaint, and endearing exterior, cuteness has hidden superpowers: it celebrates the vulnerable while sapping the authority figures they want to project.
At Yale University, Yii-Jan Lin is an associate professor of New Testament.
This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the text of the article.