The Conquest of Cute: Political Communication, Public Diplomacy, and Anime

A Modern Approach to Communication

What do the Catholic Church, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the Japan Racing Association all have in common? Although the question sounds like the setup to a corny joke, the answer has implications for the future of many of our oldest and most respected institutions. As with any organization that values tradition and continuity, these institutions are grappling with an age-old problem: How to communicate with the next generation in a rapidly-changing, hyper-digitized world?

Content and information are increasingly shared screen-to-screen rather than face-to-face, offering both great potential and increased challenges for legacy organizations. While many of these organizations are struggling to communicate with digital audiences, others are adapting in very unorthodox ways. One such method taking hold in the West is the increasing use of anime mascots, which could be termed a “conquest of cute” — a 21st century update to Thomas Frank’s concept of the “conquest of cool.”

Anime as a Global Phenomenon

Italy’s Embrace of Anime

Late last year, as part of the Catholic Church’s mission to “live even within the pop culture so beloved by our youth,” the Vatican announced it would be debuting a blue-haired anime girl named Luce as the mascot of its 2025 Jubilee. Alluding to the jubilee’s motto “Pilgrims in Hope,” Luce is dressed in a yellow raincoat and muddy green boots, holding a pilgrim’s walking stick. Moreover, the gleams in Luce’s eyes are shaped like scallops, a symbol of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in Spain that likely also references the anime trope of characters with unusually-shaped pupils. While to some outside observers Luce’s subsequent popularity with Catholics and non-Catholics alike was unexpected, it becomes less surprising once one considers the extensive history of both anime and manga fandom within Italy.

As media scholar Marco Pellitteri has noted, Italy was one of the first European markets to embrace Japanese anime. The drastic and unexpected liberalization of the Italian television industry in the mid-1970s resulted in the rapid proliferation of a large number of private commercial broadcasters and thus a very competitive and innovative television market. This rapid rise of commercial television in Italy resulted in a similar surge in demand for programs — particularly children’s programming — to fill these new channels’ schedules. This need drove “national and international distribution companies to offer many new series for children,” according to Pellitteri, with the Japanese industry playing “a preponderant role.”

Unable to produce enough cartoons domestically to meet demand, Italian broadcasters imported Japanese anime because it was generally cheaper than buying the licenses for American or French cartoons. Though unintended, the influx of Japanese animation that pervaded Italian airwaves in the 1970s and 1980s left a cultural imprint on the children who watched these shows and grew up with fond memories of them. One of these children was Simone Legno, the Roman-born designer of Luce. Before Luce’s introduction to the world, Legno was primarily known for being the co-founder and creative director of Los Angeles-based lifestyle brand Tokidoki. Founded in 2005, Tokidoki produces clothing, accessories, and collectible figurines featuring original characters largely designed by Legno.

The company has collaborated with such major brands such as Karl Lagerfeld, Hello Kitty, Sephora, and as of 2024, the Holy See. The scholars Emiko Okayama and Francesco Ricatti have argued that Tokidoki’s characters need “to be framed in terms of the present global diaspora and hybridization of cultural signs and symbols.” Or in other words, Tokidoki’s — and by extension Luce’s — aesthetic cannot accurately be described as either wholly Italian or Japanese, but the result of a generation that was inundated with popular culture from both countries throughout their childhood.

The Catholic Church’s decision to introduce an anime girl mascot was likely not a top-down decision, but rather one made within the context of Japanese anime and manga’s existing popularity in Italy. The Catholic Church is certainly very familiar with the use of art as a tool for communication. As the art critic Waldemar Januszczak has noted, the Baroque art style emerged as a result of the Council of Trent in 1563, during which the Catholic Church decided to use vivid religious imagery as a way to appeal to the masses and to contrast themselves with the austere iconoclasm of Protestant art and architecture.

Anime and the Military

Whereas the Catholic Church was persuaded to embrace anime by its lay followers, the U.S. military appears to have been pressured by its rank-and-file members. Over two years before Luce’s debut, Staff Sergeant Arthur Chou of the U.S. Marine Corps garnered considerable attention for his reproductions of World War I-era military recruitment posters, in which he replaced the original models with anime girls. Given that the U.S. audience for anime skews younger, and the average enlisted Marine is 24 years old, it makes sense that the two would align so neatly. Readers may already be familiar with the idea of teenage gamers enlisting to become drone pilots, an example of the military taking advantage of a generational cultural shift to increase combat capability.

The intersection between anime and military history, especially naval military history, has long been established in the East, where the Japanese browser game “Kantai Collection” (2013) and the Chinese mobile game “Azur Lane” (2017) feature anthropomorphized versions of historical warships.

This trend is also evident in the U.S. with the USS Hornet, a WWII-era aircraft carrier turned museum ship, docked in Alameda, California. In 2019, the USS Hornet hosted its first CarrierCon, a convention focused on gaming, anime, and cosplay. Assuming that CarrierCon’s mascot — whose skirt is embroidered with the number “12” in reference to the USS Hornet’s hull number of CV-12 — is meant to be a personification of the carrier, this would be at least the third anime character to be based on it: Both “Kantai Collection” and “Azur Lane” also feature their own versions of the Hornet.

‘Umamusume’ Case Study

Now, the horses. As if to remind western audiences where the trend originated, Japanese game developer Cygames finally released the worldwide server for its hit mobile game, “Umamusume Pretty Derby,” this past June. The game features anthropomorphized racehorses called “uma musume” — literally “horse girls.” To Americans unfamiliar with either Japanese anime or horse racing, the game might best be described as “My Little Pony” meets “Football Manager.” Although the characters and design look cute and innocent, the gameplay is notoriously complicated and has a steep learning curve.

Along with the challenging gameplay, “Umamusume” appeals to Japanese horse racing fans who are otherwise not interested in anime, manga, or gaming. The “Umamusume” cast of horse girls have the physical abilities (including strength, speed, and even appetite) of real horses, but are otherwise human in appearance, save for their horse ears and tails. The characters’ personalities, plotlines, and relationships are based on their real equine counterparts, with horses that raced each other often having similar rivalries in the game. As part of marketing efforts in May, before the game’s release, Cygames even sponsored a booth at the 151st annual Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs where attendees could try out several of the company’s mobile games, including a demo for the then-unreleased English version of “Umamusume.”

With over $2.5 billion in lifetime revenue in Japan alone, the game’s massive success has made the “Umamusume” franchise an undeniable force in Japanese horse racing. Since the original Japanese version of the game’s release in 2021, interest in horse racing, particularly among younger audiences, has seen a significant increase. At least one Japanese YouTube channel now regularly posts recent major stakes races in Japan superimposed with music from the anime’s soundtrack, such as this video of the 2025 edition of the Spring Tennō Shō, which has already attracted over 60,000 views. After the unconventionally-named Skibidi Rizz’s first race win at an Indiana racetrack less than a month after the worldwide release of “Umamusume,” an English-speaking YouTuber did the same thing to Skibidi’s race.

How ‘Cute’ Shapes Modern Culture

Returning now to Thomas Frank’s concept of coolness: In many ways, the rise of anthropomorphic anime mascots parallels the seismic generational shift in American advertising during the 1960s, when advertisers adapted their marketing strategies for a rising new demographic with increasing disposable income — teenagers. This innovation in advertising was marked, among other things, by a transition away from didactic advertisements with copious amounts of text, and toward striking images with snappy, memorable slogans that resonated with young people. Exit the nuclear family, enter the hip and independent young consumer.

Notably, advertisements during this decade focused less on the objective benefits of a certain product and more on a subjective feeling associated with the product. Frank described this trend as the “conquest of cool.” Just as 1960s advertisements intentionally drew a contrast between the “squareness” of the adult world and the “coolness” of their youth-targeted product, so too the new trend of cute anime mascots creates a process of both exclusion and inclusion. Those who “don’t get” anime culture exclude themselves, while those who appreciate the aesthetic are invited in.

‘Cute’ as a Communication Tool

This conquest of cute is primarily a bottom-up phenomenon, driven by fans. Whether or not these initiatives receive official institutional backing, the original idea usually comes from average members and followers. While the Catholic Church’s decision to create an anime girl mascot to represent their jubilee was announced by a high-ranking archbishop, the idea was undoubtedly influenced by Japanese anime and manga culture’s considerable presence in Italy.

Similarly, the increasing intersection of anime fandom with the U.S. military is a reflection of its members’ youth. The case of “Umamusume” in Japan is a clear and revealing example of the potential power of cuteness to revitalize an institution, attracting a massive influx of younger fans to a sport almost exclusively associated with older generations.

The increasing use of anime features in marketing and communications points to it being a flexible strategy for recruitment and increased intergenerational communication. The wide range of examples also implies that the power of cute could be used for political communication or cultural diplomacy in the future. In China, for instance, Baker Institute China Studies Program research into urban public propaganda suggests that local government agencies at the sub-municipal level have a high degree of freedom in deciding how to express their message.

At one 2019 public display in Shanghai’s Changning District featured Major Kusanagi from the “Ghost in the Shell” anime franchise. Even earlier, in 2013, Beijing’s Chaoyang District deployed the animated character Luo Baobei to warn about the dangers of jaywalking and to encourage young people to study the model socialist soldier Lei Feng. American viewers may recognize a depoliticized version of Luo from her debut in the British-Chinese cartoon series “Luo Baobei” exploring the world of a young girl and her imaginary large pink bear.

What does the rise of cuteness mean for the evolution of traditional institutions? The examples of the U.S. Marine Corps and administrative bodies in China suggest that being associated with a government agency is not an automatic barrier to harnessing its power. If these organizations are capable of rebranding and reinventing themselves for younger generations, they may be far more flexible than previously thought. The full extent of cute’s potential in political communication and diplomacy, however, remains to be seen.

This publication was produced on behalf of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Wherever feasible, the material was reviewed by external experts prior to its release. Any errors are the responsibility of the author(s) alone.

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