I love that more people are getting into Docuseries, even if it is mostly true crime. In the last few years we’ve seen some very interesting series. One of the coziest has been The Toys That Made Us, a short series focusing on the culture and ideas that created not just the toys of today, but, in some cases, entire cultural concepts.
While I recommend the whole series, I particularly wanted to highly recommend one episode in particular: Season 2 Episode 4 on Hello Kitty.
Starting at Shintaro Tsuji’s first creations of flowery sandals this episode covers more than just Hello Kitty herself and Sanrio, but also the entire establishment of Kawaii culture, from Japan to today.
As kawaii shows no signs of slowing, I feel a thorough and digestible history of the movement is a valuable addition to public media collections. The Toys That Made Us is available on Netflix, or on DVD.