Another year is almost over. Here’s a look back at some of the blog highlights from 2025, our 17th year of blogging!
Travel & Events
I was surprised to see how many local events we covered this year, thanks to Gabriel & Nicolette who visited Miffy’s 70th Birthday Exhibition in Leeds, the Harajuku Haven J-Fashion Exhibition and the Rua Rua Panda & ACDC RAG pop-up shops in London. Arlandyia also shared some of her favourite Kawaii Shops in Metro Manila, Philippines.
We continued to add lots of great guides for Japan as Emma’s trip this year included the Nintendo Museum, the Pikachu Sweets Cafe in Tokyo, digital installations from teamLab Planets in Tokyo & teamLab Botanical Garden in Osaka, plus Beautiful Sakura Viewing Spots in Osaka, Kyoto & Nara and a more general Osaka Travel Guide. We also had a guest post from Cakes with Faces with some videos to help you plan your dream trip and I dug out some photos and memories from a Kawaii Halloween in Japan. Emma is back in Japan right now so look out for lots more posts next year.
Kawaii Reviews
We didn’t share a lot of reviews this year but I think they were all really high quality fun items that are interesting to read about. I especially enjoyed working with Robotime to make the Rolife Super Creator Miniature House Kits and even roped in my dad to have a go at the ROKR Christmas Dream Gift Factory.
It was another great year for Pusheen Box with really fun themes and some cool and surprising items – as well as more cute clothing for my wardrobe! We also continued our collaboration with TokyoTreat & Sakuraco to try interesting Japanese snacks – huge thanks to Emma for all the amazing videos she made for Instagram.
Spicymochi | Lydia Jean Art
Kawaii Artists
Discovering and promoting small artists and makers is always our biggest priority but our Kawaii Shop of the Week feature ended up taking a break due to a lot of personal issues around the team, I hope to bring it back properly next year so if you’re a small kawaii shop struggling to get seen, do fill out our submission form. We still regularly shared our cute finds in Art & Handmade and Etsy Picks – here’s a few of my favourite themes:
- Autumnal Animal Art Prints on Etsy
- Creepy Cute Gothmas Picks
- Cute Circus Animals Etsy Picks
- Cute Summer Reading Etsy Picks
- Cute Unusual Animals Gift Guide
- Kawaii Frogs on Etsy
- Kawaii Motivation & Self Care Picks
- Kawaii Shops for Pride Month
- Kawaii Stationery for Happy Mail
- Summerween Kawaii Etsy Picks
Crafts, Guides & DIYs
Crafts are always popular so we made sure to share lots of cute and seasonal crafts, DIYs, recipes and activities for you to try. We also did some crafting ourselves and I made a project from the Pokemon Cross Stitch Book, Christmas ornaments with the Stitch Mail Cross Stitch Box and some silly Jumping Easter Bunnies. We even did some foodie tries with a long-forgotten Bunny Onigiri Rice Ball Kit and Arlandyia’s venture into tea with the Nature’s Apothecary Tea Starter Kit. I’ve been hoarding some Etsy gift vouchers so will be looking out for more fun things to try.
While we didn’t manage any original tutorials, there were some original guides including Arlandyia’s Animal Crossing Pocket Camp Design Ideas for each season and Setting Up a Kawaii Anime & Manga Journal. We also created a new Ethical Kawaii category to help you make more Earth-friendly choices with guides to Kawaii Eco-Friendly Stationery Brands & Shops, Clean + Planet Aware Skincare Brands and how to source Sustainable Craft Supplies. My favourite new feature was What’s in My Bag… where we let you have a nose inside our real bags for a K-Pop Concert and a Mini Break. The weather scuppered my other idea but we have more planned.
Cute Characters
Our favourite kawaii characters also got plenty of features for all their adorable and fun products and collabs. My Melody & Kuromi were arguably the biggest names this year celebrating their 50th & 20th anniversaries respectively with a Netflix series (which also gave My Sweet Piano a huge boost) and a Tea Shop at ARTBOX Cafe. Hangyodon’s 40th Anniversary passed with a lot less fanfare but the underdogs did get a win as Pompompurin finally took the top spot at the 2025 Sanrio Character Ranking. It was also the Year of Eevee for Pokemon fans and Chiikawa was massively popular.
San-X were so consistently amazing that I started regularly sharing what’s New At San-X This Month, which included debuts for 3 brand new characters: Cheer Cheer Lambs (childhood friends and cheerleaders), Lie Detective Tomanto (seeing through outright lies with his cherry tomato assistant) and Hamuchima (a hamster who is small in both body and spirit).
I’m always amazed by the DIYs that everyone creates for their favourite characters and that inspired a whole series of posts with crafts, DIYs & recipes featuring KPop Demon Hunters, Labubu, Sylvanian Families, Eeveelutions, Ghibli Soot Sprites and the Osaka Expo mascot Myaku-Myaku.
Newsletter & Social Media
It’s not been a great year for social media and many creators, artists and makers – including us! – have been getting more and more disillusioned that we can no longer even connect with our followers, let alone be found by new people. We’re still slogging away on Instagram and Emma has created some incredible Reels from her Japan trips. Bluesky has been the most fun and I hope it will grow even more. The most time has been spent on our email newsletter with a new monthly links & videos roundup to share all the cutest food, events, collabs and more. It’s all free so do have a read of our past emails and subscribe for future mail.
Usually we would share a list of our most popular posts from the year but those stats cost money now and we can’t afford it. At least you know we’re choosing our post themes because we want to write about them and not because we’re chasing views! We’d also love to hear about which posts you enjoyed most this year or anything you would like to see on the blog next year. Thanks for your support!
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