From simply adorable to deliciously sophisticated

"Cute" might be the last word many artists would want to hear describing their work, but darn it all if "Contemporary Outlook: Japan," a small exhibit of Japanese art since World War II at the Museum of Fine Arts, isn't cute.

That's because a chunk of the exhibit, curated by William Stover, the MFA's assistant curator of contemporary art, looks at the Japanese concept of kawaii, or cuteness, which has spread through Japanese culture like a virus since the 1970s. You see it in the doe-eyed heroes of anime and manga, graphic novels from Japan. You see it in commercial packaging of Japanese products.

Here in Boston, we've seen it in two recent exhibits of work by Japanese artists: Shintaro Miyake's "Beaver No Seikatsu" at Massachusetts College of Art, which involved the artist walking around in public in a beaver costume, and at the Institute of Contemporary Art in the cheerful, doll-filled installation by Japanese artist Misaki Kawai.

There are some frustratingly adorable pieces in this show, such as Chinatsu Ban's "Fish Eyes -- Sixth of Ten Brothers," a fiberglass elephant with a pert little trunk and sea motifs painted over it; its eyes are fishes, whose tails give the elephant eye-batting feminine allure.

"Contemporary Outlook: Japan" doesn't plumb the mysteries of kawaii, but it does suggest that some artists, largely women, are beginning to look at the phenomenon critically, including Chiho Aoshima. Locals may have seen her mural "The Divine Gas" at the ICA; in it, bubbles of flatulence erupt over an idyllic landscape. Here, she offers a narrative scroll, "Golden Fish," in which an anime-style young woman loses one of her enormous eyes when hot oil splashes into it; she weeps blood. Aoshima injects a moment of gothic horror into an otherwise benign story, disrupting expectations.

But even the horror stories here often tie up with sweet optimism. Akino Kondoh's animated film "Ladybirds' Requiem" flashes among three scenes, each with a lonely young woman. One sews buttons inside her skirt; another stands in a pond, scooping up ladybugs; a third sits in another pond, abandoning herself to rising water. The piece has an operatic melancholy, and proceeds like a fairy tale. The characters shift, blend, and turn inside out on their way toward a graceful happy ending.

Takashi Murakami, a leading artist and scholar in Japan, blends contemporary pop culture references with Japanese art history in his painting "If the Double Helix Wakes Up. . ." The piece -- like much anime, and traditional Japanese paintings -- is all surface, no pictorial depth. Over that surface shimmer wild streaks of blue on ivory; various types of elaborately patterned space ships navigate their way past one another. The artist's signature circle with a cowlick pops up here and there, and every aspect of the piece intertwines with or echoes another. It's a closed universe, poppy and appealing, and deliciously sophisticated.

Kunie Sugiura makes portraits of other artists by positioning them in front of photographic paper and turning on the lights; the paper captures their shadows. Her "Takashi Murakami C Positive" is a lovely variation on Murakami's own work, with those quirky circles floating in front of him as if he were juggling them; his own pony-tailed head mirrors the shape.

Thank heaven, not everything in "Contemporary Outlook: Japan" is bright and cheery (just most of it). Daido Moriyama is a gritty, expressionist black-and-white photographer who approaches his subjects from odd perspectives. The noirish "Midnight" was shot up close: In it, a woman pulls the lids of one eye wide open with lacquered fingernails.

Then there's Yayoi Kusama, the oldest and most legendary artist here; with 10 works in the show, she dominates one end of the gallery. Born in 1929, she early on started covering her canvases (and walls, household objects, and naked assistants) with polka dots. Kusama moved to New York in 1957 and in 1973 returned to Japan, where she lives, by choice, in a mental hospital. She has made work that delves variously into sex, surrealism, feminism, Pop Art, and minimalism.

Kusama's obsessiveness gives her work here (made in the last decade) a dark edge, despite its sometimes brilliant, sparkly tones. "Shoes (green)" has the "Wizard of Oz" colliding with Meret Oppenheim-style surrealism: The shoes are glittering green sandals, with giant, banana-like green nodes protruding from the straps. The painting "Dots Infinity: NOWH" bubbles with colored dots; they're fizzy and fun, but too many of them could push a viewer over the edge.

"Contemporary Outlook: Japan" skips over some major players in Japanese art of the last 60 years, such as sculptor Isamu Noguchi, photographer Morimura Yasumasa, and Yoko Ono, to name a few who make art that's anything but cute. As it is, the exhibit is sweet and likable, but it's more dessert than it is entrée.