About: Kawaii thesaurus-kind-of

An alphabetized explanation of words and expressions you are likely to come across surfing kawaii websites. Click any letter above or simply scroll down to get started!

A

Adoptions

You know what it feels like to stumble across a drawing or doll or other graphic that is simply soooo cute and adorable or talented that you just HAVE to put it in your own website? Well, here’s a short explanation on how to do it the netiquette way! Most pixel artists are happy to see that their work is popular, but they usually want to be credited for it (there’s a lot of effort put into every pixel!). By "adopting" a pixel graphic you have the chance of both putting it up at your website AND crediting the artist. Read more here about how to adopt the proper way.

Affiliates

Having an affiliate, or "affy", means that you’re linking to another site – and this site is linking back to you. Usually you share the same theme for your sites (pixeling, dolling, blogging or other subjects). The links are put in highly visible spots, i.e. on the index page. Affiliates are usually not as "formal" as Sister Sites.

Anime

Anime characters are frequently used as avatars, wallpapers, layout backgrounds, application skins etc. The word Anime (meaning animation) is of French origin, but it has come to mean specifically Japanese animation. While most Western animation is targeted for kids, Anime and Manga (Japanese comic books) are considered a valid media for all age groups.

Many anime are given the budgets of popular American TV series, and there is a huge market for anime run directly to video. Anime has a few things that makes it unique, the most obvious is the oversized eyes (not a distinct rule, but quite common).

Secondly is how the body is often drawn disproportionately small, and lastly is the general tone of anime – while there is much of it targeted for children, there is also much of it that is aimed at more mature audiences, and include violence, nudity and sex. Some of the reasons why Anime has become so highly demanded in the past several years are: cuteness (seemingly the most important factor to most), character design, plot depth, and “hentai".

For more in-depth reading, check out Rei’s pages on Manga and Anime, for details on the different animes check here, and for an anime encyclopedia go here!

Avatars

An avatar, ava or avi, is a small picture representing/ illustrating you at a forum, in your weblog etc. Most forums have a default gallery to choose from, but some also allow direct linking of your own picture or even uploads. There are lots of avatar galleries to pick and choose from, with cartoons, anime/ manga characters or more abstract motives. Common sizes are 65×65 px and 100×100 px. See our sidebar menu for a separate page for avatar info!

Awards

An award is a graphic in the form of a diploma, or at least with the wordings of a diploma, that is given to a site or a person. Some dolls sites give monthly awards to other sites, called "Site of the month" (SOTM) or something similar. Others have quizzes or contests and give awards to whomever finds the answer or win the contest. I’ve also seen people giving others awards simply because they wanted to reward them for something – like good friendship! Awards are great in many ways: you make people happy by giving them, you get a chance to promote your own site (by linking back to you) – and you’ll have a good time making it!

B

Banner

A banner is a graphic representing your website, not unlike the professional banner ads you’ll see at commersial websites but almost always smaller. Put your logo or URL on a coloured or patterned background, maybe even add a small drawing – and you’re set! The most popular formats for banners are:

blank banners from alethia graphics and Angelic-Network, none of which are online anymore

Banner Exchange

A neat way to generate traffic to your website is to have others display your (linked) banner at their website. Neat, because this also builds bonds between people! Sister sites, affiliates, button wall and button exchange are commonly used terms.

Barunson

Korean character branding company, known for characters like the cute Cafe Pupu desserts, the fresh Fruitzi fruits, and the sleepy rabbit Sleeping Co. Official www here.

Base

Most commonly used as a term for "naked" dolls, sometimes even without facial features. You’re free to use anybody’s bases for making your own doll, but you’re expected to give credits and a link back. Check out lots of neat dollbases here (undergoing an upgrade) or in our dolls section (side bar menu).

Bishõnen

Meaning “beautiful boy”, this is a specific Japanese aesthetic concept of the ideally beautiful young man. The prefix bi- specifically refers to feminine beauty (bijin, lit. “beautiful person”, refers to a beautiful woman.) The bishõnen is typically quite slender and not very muscular, with a tapered chin, stylish hair, and an overall effeminate or androgynous appearance. The aesthetic of the bishõnen began as an ideal of a young homosexual lover, likely arising from the effeminate male actors who played female characters in Kabuki theater. Homosexual characters in anime are also often categorized as bishõnen. (from Wikipedia)

Blends

A "blend" is a series of pictures molded together seamlessly to create one larger picture. They are typically used for blogs or other website layouts, featuring anime/manga characters, actors/ actresses or musical idols. You will need an advanced photo editor program like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro to make them. A neat tutorial on how to make them is found at DreamVision FanArts. Example is taken from the now offline tutorial section of Anne’s Graphics:

Blinkies

This phenomenon is originally associated with online diaries, more often called weblogs or blogs. Some also use them in their signatures at bulletin boards, or simply to brighten up their private homepages. The typical blinkies were two frame animations, nowadays the “blocks” version seems to gain more popularity, especially amongst the kawaii people. Read more about blinkies by clicking the link in the side bar menu!

Blog

Common term for online diary, abbreviated from "weblog". Also referred to as online journal. There are lots of free services for blogs; some provide you with the webspace to upload it, some are scripts which you install on your own server account.

Bratz

(see Divas)

Buttons

Buttons can mean clickable images for navigating on your website ("Home", Next" etc), but more commonly the word refers to banners.

Button Exchange

(see Banner Exchange)

Button Wall

Button walls are used for your favourite links, it’s simply a page where you display the banners to sites you visit often or are inspired by. The ones displayed there doesn’t necessarily even know about it (although it’s a fine gesture to tell, I know I personally would have been thrilled to know that someone liked my site enough to put it up at their wall of links!).

C

Cartoon Dolls

(see Dolls)

CG

- basically means Computer Graphics, or computer generated drawings. Some refer to cg’ing meaning the art of coloring and shading premade lineart; typically manga-/ anime looking people or creatures. Photoshop or Canvas Open are programs frequently used.

Character branding

Companies specializing on character branding designs characters, often complete with a biography, which then are used as for decoration of stationery, bags, cellular phone accessories, plush toys etc. – some even get their own series (cartoon) on TV. In the cute pixel world, owners of kawaii websites frequently use these characters as inspiration or copy them directly for layouts and other graphics. Amongst the most popular ones are San-X, Sanrio, Barunson and Morning Glory.

Cliques

A clique is a place where people enter their name and a link to their website to show their admiration or love for something or someone – and, of course, to get more hits for their site. Unlike a fanlisting, you must have a website to become a member of a clique and you always have to display the clique’s code somewhere on that website, linked back to the clique. A clique most often covers the same subjects that a fanlisting would do (fandoms), but the owners are free to form their own rules for joining and later staying a member (in comparison, the fanlistings’ networks have a small set of universal and not too strict membership rules). Consequently, some cliques have fairly elitish demands for membership, espescially in regards to the looks and design of the websites applying for membership.

Code

When talking about cliques, fanlistings, webrings, a “code” is simply the image/ button or text link you put up at your site showing that you’re a member.

Cosplay

This is a contraction of the English words “costume” and “play”. It’s a Japanese subculture centered on dressing as characters from manga, anime, and video games. Some also mimic live action television shows, movies or Japanese pop music bands. (from Wikipedia)

D

Divas

Style of Dolls, also referred to as Bratz. Typical features are big heads, eyes and feet. Divamakers: Destany’s Fantasy :: TrinityKiss’ Bratmaker

Doller

Person drawing dolls!

Dollmaker

Webpage with dolls’ bases (bodies) and premade props (hairdos, clothes, shoewear, extras). Most common feature is drag and drop, although some have a double click function. When the doll is finished, you save it to your own computer by taking a screenshot of it (since the doll is made up by adding multiple images to an area of the page, right clicking will only allow you to save the item on top of the doll, i.e. the hair…). Tip: set your screen resolution to 800×600 for best accuracy while assembling your doll! Check this page for links to some great dollmakers.

Dolls/Dollz

The phenomenon of Dolls started up in a virtual chatroom, or avatar chatroom, called the Palace. There you can "walk around" in 3D surroundings while chatting, and the doll is supposed to portray you (or the inner you…). Things have escalated since then, and Dolls are perhaps one of the biggest crazes around the Internet today. People make their own designs or they use dollmakers – or they "adopt" other people creations to display on their own website.

There are lots and lots of Dolls styles. The first dolls were called skaters and were kind of sloppy dressed – and for a long time the main categories were reckoned to be:

Lately, with all kinds of doll styles, they are more commonly divided into small, medium and large depending on the body size, and sometimes also divided by the shading techniques used (tool shading – using blur, smudge, dodge, burn etc. – or “pure” pixel shading). While some dolls are pretty kitsch – preppy teenage girls with huge faery wings, glitter and all – more and more brilliant dollers are surfacing, showing off their amazing techniques of colouring and shading. Read more about Dolls/Dollz at Wikipedia.

E

Emoticons

When communicating over the Internet important non verbal information is missed. Emoticons provides an incredible way of showing off your mood and real intentions – some times it’s sufficient just to put a smiley in your post at a board (a picture says more than a thousand words…). In the early beginnings people were using plain ASCII to portray their emotions, which narrowed things down when it came to what they could express. Disregarding the most obvious (tilt your head to the left!), like : )   ; ) and : ( you would have to know the person you were chatting with well to understand what he or she were trying to say. What do you for instance make of this one? :-.) You’ll find an extensive list of ASCII smilies at Netlingo. Also see facemarks.

F

Facemarks

The Japanese emoticons/ facemarks has become more and more different from the Western ones. A major difference is how they are read horizontally – or without having to tilt your head. Also, Japanese letters on screen are 2 bytes, not 1 byte like the Western alphabet, meaning more characters. The alphabet/ letters are more intricate than the Western one, thus enabling more drawing-like emoticons while still only ASCII. Finally, Japanese sentences contain Chinese characters – which are phonograms, making it easier to express and recognize something visualized with letters. In manga and anime, feelings are often expressed to excess, almost charicature like, using certain lines or graphics. The same is seen with the facemarks, which are to a large degree influenced by manga/ anime. Examples (some prefer to drop the parentheses, which illustrates face contours):

(^ ^) (^_^) – smiling!
(*^_^*) – smiling and blushing
\(^o^)/ – wow! raising the arms in surprise or joy
(-_-) – angry, but not showing it
(^_^?) – confused
(>_< ) – ouch! bummer or painful experience
(^_^;) – a bit embarassed, cold sweat dripping
(O_O) (O_o) – shock, disbelief
(^_~) (^_-) – wink
(= ^ · ^ =) ( · x · ) – kitten and rabbit

Fanlistings

Joining a fanlisting is a way of showing your interest in, or rather admiration or fandom for, something or someone. The purpose of fanlistings is to gather the largest online list of fans for each listing’s subject, and the majority of fanlistings don’t have any content but the join form and the members list. With the minimal requirements in regards to content, making a fanlisting is a great and realistic way of practicing web design skills, and fanlistings collectives – several fanlistings run by the same owner – have become increasingly common. The difference between a fanlisting and a clique is a bit tricky to explain, but basically a clique is something that websites join (get listed at) while a fanlisting is something that people join (you don’t need to own a website or to link back in order to be accepted as a member of a fanlisting). A fanlisting is typically listed with a network, with only one “approved” fanlisting for each subject – while there can be lots of cliques for the same topic. The most popular fanlistings networks are TheFanlistings (the original one) and the AnimeFanlistings. There are also networks like the Taboolistings (listing subjects not accepted with TFL), the Namelistings, and the Physical Fanlistings (fanlistings for physical attributes of celebrities).

Frankendolling

Making a doll by putting together pieces of already made dolls and claiming it to be your own creation – contrary to making one from scratch either by drawing it yourself or using a dollmaker. Understandably, frankendolling is not very popular amongst dollers, and has been known to stir quite the drama if discovered.

G

H

Hentai

Hentai is Japanese for (roughly translated) naughty, and is adult in nature, proving that Anime is not just for kids. Hentai features nudity, sex, and other things along those lines.

A lot of hentai doesn’t really show anything – there is nudity and sexual simulation, but it falls into the area of an R-rated movie. A very common setting in hentai anime is young, well endowed women being attacked by aliens and demons. Read more…

Het

Het is a term used by fanfiction writers to show that heterosexual pairings are within the fiction. This term may also be used in conjunction with slash, a term used to describe a story with homosexual pairings.

Hiatus

Hiatus means that the website owner has decided to take the site down, normally for a shorter period of time. Maintaining an updated website is a pretty demanding task, and if your heart’s not into it many people feel it’s better to temporary remove the site rather than leaving it up without adding to it. A hiatus is also commonly used when a new layout is being installed.

I

Icons

Icons can mean avatars (espcially for instant messaging programs), but are most commonly used for either small images for decoration or navigating on a website ("Home", "Email" etc, most often in .gif-format – similar to buttons), or even “real” icons (.ico-format), used on a person’s personal computer to symbolize folder and file types, and replacing the default ones. There are some really nice icons resources listed in our Icons-section (see sidebar menu).

J

K

Kawaii

Kawaii is Japanese and can easiest be translated with the word “cute”, which is a main characteristic is many popular Animes. Kawaii characters are often originally made by brand-designing companies, meant for decorations on stationery, bags, purses and other accessories. Some develop into cartoons, but that’s not the rule. Companies designing the most popular ones are San-X (Tare Panda), Sanrio (Hello Kitty) and Vooz (Pucca). Cute pixel sites are a huge fad, and it’s truly amazing the things you can stumble across. Check out a couple of links here or at our own link page.

Kawaii is a lifestyle, and an attitude – read more…

L

Layouts

Personal homepages are often pretty detailed when it comes to the looks. A popular layout style is the "country graphics" style, commonly using three tables placed inside each other, earthly colors and snuggly ragdoll-like graphics. Another fad is the use of iframes and transparency, often with blends displaying anime/manga characters, or popular celebrities (not related to the content of the site). This style typically means frequent layout changes, depending on which idol is hot or not, and it is typically used for weblogs. The pixel websites are made using pixel art, often themed over the use of a kawaii character. Pixel art and dolls sites have traditionally been made as popup windows measuring 800×600, linked from a splash page. If you don’t know how to make your own layout there are plenty of places to get web sets for free, no matter the style.

M

Manga

As with anime characters, manga characters are extremely popular as avatars, blends, layout themes etc. Manga is Japanese for "comic", however there are several distinct differences between an western comic book and a Japanese one. Almost all manga are black and white. Some manga have been translated to other languages in order for fans all over the world to read them, but they are still kept in the Japanese reading mode they were made: from right to left, and back to front. There are manga stories for everyone, from kids to adults. In general, manga characters aren’t superheroes, but simply average people studying or working at an office. The drawing style is rather simple, yet unique, inspired by asian art – and the characters are commonly reckognized by their oversized eyes and huge hair (not to say that all manga drawn that way, though!). Other aspects of manga in general are realism and termination. The readers are shown that bad guys aren’t all evil – they have their hopes and dreams, too. Also, the stories always comes to an end, they don’t continue on forever and ever.

For more in-depth reading, check out Rei’s pages on Manga and Anime!

Manga-ka

This is the Japanese word for a comic artist/ cartoonist. Outside of Japan, it usually refers specifically to Japanese comic artists.

Mindwave

Japanese branding company, known for characters like the pill shaped USA Colle critters and the licensing of Prom’s pea pod series Mame Nakama.
Official website here.

Morning Glory

Korean branding company, known for the cute characters Cooni, Babu, Sleeping Co and more. Official website here, English version/ online store here.

N

O

P

Pixel art

Not very easily described – in short terms it means anything drawn digitally, pixel by pixel, either by mouse or by using a tablet, and without using any tools like smudge, burn or dodge. There are lots of graphics programs for the purpose, the most common ones are Adobe Photoshop and Jasc Paint Shop Pro, but quite a few stick to freeware like MS Paint, GIMP or Pixia. When making a pixel drawing the work space is zoomed in to appr. 1600x, and the pencils, brushes and eraser tools are set to 1px width for highest accuracy. A pixel art piece is typically quite small or consists of many small elements. Some even animate their drawings. A couple of neat places to go for a first glimpse and tutorials are pixel.nascimpact, the game sprite designer Nekoteya, and the character designer Bibi‘s website (click the “Work” menu).

Preps

One of the first dolls‘ styles, illustrating sweet looking teenage school girls wearing only the latest fashion, having well styled hairdos and perfect makeup.

Props

Typically term for the items in drag and drop makers. Examples are hairdos, shoes and clothes in a dollmaker, beads and icons in a blinkiemaker or blank banners, letters and icons in a bannermaker.

Q

Quilts

Putting up a quilt at your homepage is an excellent way of promoting your site and getting to know people with the same interests as you. Quilts typically consist of square buttons portraying whatever the interest is that the quilt is supposed to be about. You exhange buttons, or patches, with others, linking to their sites through the button and thus generating more traffic to the members of the quilt. Obviously, in pixel circles, the quilt patches are hand drawn pixel by pixel. The most known and acknowledged is probably the Quilting Bee.

R

S

Sanrio

Designer company making character-branded kawaii stationery, school supplies, gifts and accessories. Most famous for the popular Hello Kitty. Official www here.

San-X

Another character-branding company, their perhaps most known character is the lazy Tare Panda. Official www here.

Seiyuu

A Japanese term that translates to a voice actor/ actress for radio, television and video games. On television, they are mostly used in anime and commercial advertisements, and are somewhat more famous than voice actors traditionally are in America. When speaking of a character in a series translated into English, conventional usage among American fans is to use seiyuu to refer to the Japanese actor and voice actor for the English one. (from Wikipedia)

Shoutbox

(see Tagboard)

Silents

(see Dolls)

Sister site

A sister site is something special, this is usually a gesture between close online friends. Sister sites link to each other in a very visible way, and they often share the same theme for their sites (whether it being dolling, pixeling or just blogging). You’re probably also pretty bonded with the owner of that site, corresponding through email, IM or by commenting each other’s blogs. Giving gifts in the form of specially made pixel art for birthdays, the holidays and other special occations is "part of the deal"! Also see Affiliates.

Skins/ Skinning

Skinning means changing the looks of applications, browsers and website layouts, by altering colors and adding background images etc. For skinned personal websites, there are often several skins to choose between for the visitor, and cookies set in your browser will let you to browse the whole website using that same skin once it’s chosen. Skinning is neat when you want to put up a new layout for your website, but at the same time you are reluctant to take down the previous one.

Slash

(also see het) Slash fiction is fan fiction, describing gay pairings between characters, often in explicit detail, and very frequently outside the original story. The name arises from the use of the slash character in phrases such as ‘Kirk/Spock’ to describe the stories. (‘Kirk/Spock’ is widely thought to be the first type of slash fiction, first appearing in the 1970s in Star Trek fanzines.) Today slash fiction is written, or at least explored, by a wide variety of people of all backgrounds and orientations, although the majority of slash authors and slash fans are heterosexual women. The exact definition of the term has often been hotly debated within the various slash fandoms. Some hold that the term ‘slash’ only applies when the relationship being written about is not part of the source’s original story, and that fan fiction about openly same-sex relationships is hence not slash. This distinction has however not been widely adopted. (from Wikipedia)

Smileys/Smilies

(see Emoticons)

Smileymaker

(see Emoticons)

Splash Page

A fad amongst dollers and pixel art people is to put their site in a popup window linked from the indexpage – or "splash page". The splash page typically contains an Enter sign, information about which browser and screen resolution the site is optimized for, and a couple of visitor counters/ trackers. It’s also common to use the splash page for links to all the cliques, fanlistings and also any webrings and directories the site owner has joined, plus voting buttons if the site is listed with one or more toplists.

Sprites

Extremely tiny dolls, often portraying characters from film, TV or manga/anime. The term "sprite" is originally from the computer games developing business, meaning an item standing out from the background/being freely movable (i.e. the game’s characters).

T

Tagboard

Similar to guestbooks, tagboards are forms allowing visitors to give immediate feedback to a website, though often being used for more instant and less formal messages than those seen in a guestbook. Tagboards are typically placed on the index page of a site (although not on the splash page if any). It seems as if it’s easier to get people to write something in the tagboard than using the guestbook, most probably because of their visibility. A downside of tagboards is that they may be hit by spammers and chatters, putting a heavy load on the website’s bandwith. Some tagboard scripts have and IP-banning tools to prevent spamming and flooding.

Toplists

A great way to plug your website is to list it at one or more toplists, where the visitors can vote for you, or simply visit you by clicking your banner. Some toplists have elitish demands and require the list owner’s approval, but more commonly everyone can enroll their site.

U

V

Vooz

Korean company of character designers, most popular character is perhaps the little girl Pucca. Official www here.

W

Wallpapers

Image to download and set as background for your computer’s desktop, commonly featuring anime, manga or kawaii characters.

Web sets

(see Layouts)

Wonderkins

(see Dolls)

X

Y

Yaoi

(pron “Yah-Oh-ee”) Originally used to refer to fan manga that focused on homosexual relationships between male characters, especially two bishõnen – being the manga equivalent of slash. The term is an acronym derived from a Japanese phrase “yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi” meaning “no climax, no resolution, no meaning.” Its target audience, readership and creators are almost exclusively young to middle-age women. A common reason as to why many females are attracted to yaoi is that it is said to be a means for females to fully enjoy romance without feeling pressure or competition from the presence of a romantic/ sexual female character in the story, not necessarily because they are supporters of gay rights. The term is also often used in a general way to refer to male-male sexual or romantic content anywhere in the galaxy of anime, manga and fan fiction based on these; usually of a hard-core nature. In Japan, the term “BL” (Boy’s Love) is more often used than the term Yaoi. (from Wikipedia)

Z