"All my friends are characters" is a line from the Peanuts cartoon strip, but it seems that everyone in Japan, from friends to foes to family members — have turned into characters, or as people over here say, kyara.

Although the term was originally used to describe anime-character merchandise from the Hello Kitty stable and the like, it now refers to a personality trait, or even simply a person, and is used both generically and specifically for convenient typification. Many Japanese now introduce or explain themselves by tossing in the word kyara, as in: Watashi wa makkura kyara desukara (I'm the "pitch-black" gloomy type). The handiness of kyara is that it prevents this admission from being taken too seriously or the person from sounding needy or freakish.

Kyara works like a calorie-deleting sweetener: at this rate defense attorneys will probably start describing their clients wanted for murder as a koroshiya (assassin) kyara, perhaps to bring the point home that they'll pull out a cute illustration of a guy in sunglasses and wielding a butcher knife. Just kidding.