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For some reason, the Japanese Internet just loves polling its readers about a variety of (often mundane) topics in the form of surveys, polls, and other data collection methods. One of the biggest themes revolves around international perceptions of Japan, particularly in the realms of dating and relationships, as our site has featured multiple times in the past.
According to the latest poll conducted in a joint effort between Omron Healthcare Co Ltd and Wacoal (a lingerie company based in Kyoto) for an ongoing women empowerment project, 98% of foreign men perceive Japanese women to be “kawaii” (“cute”). But can you guess the number one thing that the majority of those men find to be unattractive about Japanese women, and what researchers are planning to do about it?
Since Japan is going to be increasingly put in the spotlight from now through the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, the two aforementioned companies have recently begun investigating the perceptions of Japanese women by foreigners. I was initially skeptical about how the results of the following survey would benefit the healthcare or lingerie industries, let alone humanity, but there’s an actual point to all this, I promise (I’ll explain later).
Between Oct 23-31, 2014, researchers surveyed approximately 50 foreign men who had been living in Japan for at least a year regarding what they think about Japanese women (the relatively small sample size bothers me a little, but hey, what can you do…). When asked if they thought that Japanese were “kawaii,” a whopping 98% replied “yes.” Out of those men, when asked to name the most “kawaii” feature about Japanese women, 82% replied “their faces/makeup,” 78% replied “their general attitudes,” 76% replied “their hairstyles,” and 72% replied “their figures.” Rounding off the bottom of the list at only 28% was “their way of walking.”
For the next question, the men were asked to think about the flip side of things–what they thought was “not so ‘kawaii’” about Japanese women.
As shown in the chart, the top three spots went to “their way of walking” (64%), “their way of talking” (44%), and “their posture” (42%). “Their voices” and “their mannerisms” were tied for fourth place (40%).
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