Kawaii comes from the Japanese to be like a child or be cute as a child.
The word evolved with the simplification for cute, though kawaii has connotations of shyness, embarrassment, vulnerability, darlingness and lovability.
The kawaii culture or the ‘cult to the cute’, started back in the 60’s Japan as a rebellion against the authority movement, (by students reading manga instead of the mandatory academic syllabus).
