Yami Kawaii

Sensitive Content Notice ⚠️

The following article contains and discusses content that may be distressing to some readers.
Reason for Warning: This article discusses mental health issues. Keep in mind that this shouldn't be used as just a cutesy aesthetic.

This article is part of a series on Kawaii

Yami Kawaii (病みかわいい or やみかわ), directly translating into "sickly cute", is a Japanese aesthetic that was derived from Yume Kawaii with a stronger emphasis on dark, especially medical and mental health related, themes and darker colors. As the term can also be used as an adjective, its interpretation can vary a lot depending on the context as a character being described as Yami Kawaii can simply refer to their personality being dark and cute without visually representing the aesthetic.

It is often confused with the Gurokawa aesthetic, which has a focus on cutified horror, but Yami Kawaii has more of a shoujo spin to it with many anime-style illustrations involved, and is generally not bloody or gory.

History[]

The aesthetic first emerged among the members of Japan's mental health subculture "Menhera" (メンヘラ) during the 2000s, but didn't have an own name until 2015. Menhera translates to mental healther, meaning "someone who does mental health", and initally used to refer to the users of 2channel's mental health board.^[1] Menhera is designed to challenge societal taboos around mental health, specially the Japanese society where mental health is considered taboo and having a therapist equals being insane.

The original purpose of the aesthetic was to have a creative outlet to cope with mental health issues while also challenging the social stigma that judges a person's suffering by a bad appearance. However, with the increasing media awareness of Yami Kawaii there also came an over-commercialization that reduced it to simply medical motifs.

Visuals[]

Generally Yami Kawaii is kept in dark colors to match its negative world view. While pastel colors are also used, it's usually for the purpose of making important details stand out from the rest of the image. Morbid elements are often not noticeable at first glance within the overall cute imagery. There are many medical items such as syringes and pills, suicide and self harm tools, negative messages, vent art images, and traces of pink blood.

Fashion[]

Genres_of_Kawaii_Yami_Kawaii — Genres of Kawaii Yami Kawaii

As a style, Yami Kawaii first gained traction on the menheru board of 2channel, where many users shared “vent art” as a form of art therapy. This art often reflected the artists’ personal struggles with mental health issues most times having medical modifies . Eventually, this aesthetic found its way into clothing and accessories. Until today, many Yami Kawaii clothes have prints featuring vent art.

While there are many ways that Yami Kawaii can be integrated into fashion, the most common seem to be dark casual outfits featuring motifs with opposing elements, like cute animals with negative texts, in the form of prints. There are also many medical accessories such as Band-Aid hair clips, syringe necklaces, and pill bracelets due to the nature of the aesthetic.

Makeup is worn regardless of gender in Yami Kawaii in order to archive a sickly look by applying pink or red blush right under the eyes instead of the traditional use on the apple of the cheeks, and is often further exaggerated by enchanting the natural eye bag line. Lips are usually kept very simple but gradients are also very popular.

Media[]

Manga & Anime[]

Ai no Donor
Artiswitch
Comical Psychosomatic Medicine
Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!
Crazy Dark Rabbit
Happy Sugar Life
Inkya Gyaru demo Ikigaritai!
Josou Danshi to Menhera Oji-san
Kuuchuu Buranko
Last Menhealer
Mahou Shoujo Saiko Maria☆Mental Darkness
Mahou Shoujo Site
Mahou Shoujo Raising Project
Menhera-chan
Menhera Marumaru Sasete Mita
Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei
Sazi-chan no Yami Nikki
Suicide Girl
Utsuneko to Hamster
Utsu wo Amaku Mitemashita
Wonder Egg Priority
You If
Yuki Yuna is a Hero

Video Games[]

Amane Switch
Ashita, Inochi ga Owaru to Shitara
Club Suicide
Happy Birthday Balvenie
Kyouison Girls
Love Angel Syndrome
Menhera Ensemble
Menhera Fresia
Menhera Mate
Menhera SNS
Needy Streamer Overload
Omori
Hookah Haze

Music[]

Artists[]

Popular artists within Yami Kawaii include:

AVAM
CHICKwarp
Chinoi Momone
Fanatic
Gozenreiji
Mio Yamazaki
Misola de Edison
R-Shitei
Sick2
Shinsei Kamatte Chan
Strawberry Painkiller
soranaki
Sanso Nakamura
Sylph emew
Takayan
Taraeva
Tuyu
Yandoll
Yukueshirezutsurezure
Zenbu kimi no seida.
Cy8er(BPM15Q)
Candye♡Syrup

There's also many VOCALOID producers who are popular within the aesthetic's community because of the combination of depressing themes with the adorable voices of the characters in their songs, such as:

Criticism[]

Bisuko Ezaki (Menhera-chan)[]

The spread of Yami Kawaii is often credited to have been helped by the character and manga series "Menhera-chan" in particular. It was first created in 2013 by the artist Bisuko Ezaki as a form of vent art character during his university entrance exams, but gained an unexpected amount of attention that led to an expansion into an own manga series as of 2014.

Because of the background of its creation, the story of Menhera-chan is not suitable for everyone because of its heavy emphasis on themes of self-harm, and might even be misunderstood as romanticizing such a topic as the main cast transforms into magical girls by the means of slitting their wrists. With the increasing awareness of the series, there also appeared a massive influx of people who solely use the art of the characters for the purpose of glorifying self-harm. On Twitter in particular, it has become commonplace for the official Menhera-chan account to share fan content from accounts of such people, potentially exposing strangers to graphic content.

While the series inspired many other people to use art as as a creative outlet to break the silence regarding their suffering, there also have been many critical voices claiming the increasing popularity went over Bisuko Ezaki's head, fueled by his attempt to register Yami Kawaii as his trademark in 2017 ^[2] as well as an increase in general drama and problematic remarks from the artist^[3], resulting in the local community in Japan to distance from the term^[4].

The aesthetic itself was accused of glorifying mental illnesses and self-destructive behaviour as well, mostly due the anti-recovery community also engaging with the hashtag while posting triggering content.