Round eyes
◕ ● ◍ ๑ ˘ ᵕ
The single biggest lever. Anything circular looks young; angular eyes never do.
Soft, round and harmless
Cute Kaomoji
Cute kaomoji work by making the face small and the eyes large. Almost every one below uses a rounded eye character, a tiny mouth and a symmetrical bracket, which is the whole trick — the proportions do the work, not the individual symbols.
(◕‿◕)
Quick answer
Which one should you use?
The most copied cute kaomoji are (◕‿◕), (≧◡≦) and (´･ω･`). All three use large round eyes and a small mouth inside a plain bracket pair, and that combination is what makes a face cute instead of merely happy. Faces with a ω mouth are the softest of all, because the kana sits wide and low like a rounded muzzle.
Copy and paste
24 cute kaomoji
Every face is plain text. Tap one to copy it, then paste it wherever you are typing — it travels as ordinary characters, not as an image.
(◕‿◕)
Wide-eyed smile
Big eyes, a gentle curved mouth, and nothing else competing.
(≧◡≦)
Squinting delight
Eyes closed by happiness, not sleep.
(´･ω･`)
Soft ω face
The most Japanese-feeling of the set. Sweet, and a little unsure of itself.
(｡･ω･｡)
Round cheeks
The full-width dots add cheeks without adding a mouth.
(◍•ᴗ•◍)
Padded smile
Circled dots give the face weight, like a plush toy.
(*≧ω≦*)
Delighted squeeze
Asterisks read as blush or sparkle either side.
(ᵔᴗᵔ)
Closed-eye smile
Both eyes curved shut. Content, not laughing.
(๑>◡<๑)
Beaming
The Thai character adds rounded cheeks that Latin brackets cannot.
(´ ˘ `)
Tiny content
Almost featureless, and that is the point. Nothing competes with the calm.
(*´ ˘ `*)
Blushing content
The same face with blush marks, and noticeably warmer for it.
(´• ω •`)
Hopeful
Spacing around the mouth makes it look like it is waiting for an answer.
( ˙ ᵕ ˙ )
Neutral cute
Blank but not cold; good for a mild reaction.
(っ˘ω˘ς )
Sleepy cuddle
The っ and ς are arms wrapped inward, holding on.
( ･ω･)っ
Offering
The trailing っ is a hand held out, which suits giving or asking.
ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ
Bear
The ʕ ʔ brackets are ears, and ᴥ is the standard animal snout.
(=^･ω･^=)
Cat
Equals signs are whiskers, carets are ears.
(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)
Bright
Here the ﾟ marks are sparkle, not blush.
(◜◡◝)
Gentle arc smile
Three curves and nothing else. The most minimal face here.
(●'◡'●)
Rosy cheeks
Solid circles as wide eyes with a small curved mouth.
(◔◡◔)
Peeking smile
Part-filled eyes give it a sidelong, slightly shy look.
(｡◕‿◕｡)
Framed smile
The full-width dots frame the face like cheeks.
(*'ω'*)
Surprised cute
Straight quotes make it look mildly startled.
(´ ▽ `)ﾉ
Cute wave
The ﾉ is a raised hand; wide spacing keeps it relaxed.
(⁀ᗢ⁀)
Wide smile
Canadian syllabics as a broad open grin between two curves.
How they are built
The parts these faces are made of
Kaomoji are assembled rather than drawn. Once you can see the components, you can adjust any face on this page instead of hunting for a different one.
Small mouths
‿ ᴗ ω ³ ꒳ ‸
Kept narrower than the gap between the eyes, so the face stays bottom-light.
Blush and sparkle
* ﾟ ｡ ๑
Placed just inside the brackets. Two marks give you blush, one gives you a glint.
Arms
っ ς ﾉ づ
Kana used as hands. Adding them turns a face into a gesture.
Before you paste
Getting them to arrive intact
Paste as plain text
Markdown and rich-text editors treat backslashes, underscores and asterisks as formatting. A face that loses an arm or a cheek was almost certainly parsed rather than pasted.
Keep the face short
Cute depends on compactness. Once a kaomoji runs past about ten characters it tips over into elaborate and stops being sweet.
Check the fallback font
If a character shows as a box, the device has no font covering it. Every face here avoids rare blocks for that reason, but very old systems can still miss the Canadian syllabics used for animal cheeks.
Read more
Faces with a full write-up
Some of these have their own page covering where the face came from and how its meaning has shifted.
ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
Cat Kaomoji
A round cat face with two raised paws either side.
Read the entryʕ•ᴥ•ʔ
Bear Kaomoji
A small round bear face, three characters wide.
Read the entry(っ˘̩╭╮˘̩)っ
Hug Kaomoji
Arms outstretched for a hug, with a wobbly mouth.
Read the entry(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ
Happy Hug Kaomoji
The classic grinning hug face with reaching arms.
Read the entry
Questions
Cute Kaomoji FAQ
What is the cutest kaomoji?
(◕‿◕) is the most widely used, and (´･ω･`) is the one most associated with Japanese internet culture specifically. Both work because the eyes are large and round while the mouth stays small. The proportion is doing it, not the individual characters, so an angular face built the same way falls flat.
What does the ω in a kaomoji mean?
It is the Greek letter omega, used as a mouth. Its wide, low, rounded shape suggests a small animal muzzle, which is why faces built around it, like (´･ω･`) and (◕ω◕), feel softer than the same face with a ‿ or ▽ mouth. It carries no meaning beyond the shape.
How do I type cute kaomoji on a phone?
Copy them rather than typing them. Building one by hand needs a Japanese keyboard for the kana and several character-picker trips for the rest. Most people paste from a list and save the ones they use into a text-replacement shortcut, which turns a short trigger into the full face.
Why does my cute kaomoji look stretched?
Kana and full-width brackets occupy a full character cell while Latin letters occupy half. In a proportional font the face is drawn with mixed widths, so the brackets sit further out than intended. Nothing is broken; it will look correct again in a monospace context.
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