Nuts and Bolts: kaomoji.

 Kaomoji is a much-used form of emoticon in Japan. The Japanese belief that the eyes are the mirrors of the soul means that the eyes are the most important feature in kaomoji (in the West in tends to be the mouth). 

Kaomoji are also read upright, not sideways, as in Western emojis: 

;-)

(Japanese writing has vertical space to allow for this.)

There are a lot of kaomoji. Officially there are about ten thousand, but there are certainly many more. This is partly because there are a lot more shapes to play with in Japanese script. You can even write stories in them.

Here are a few kaomoji to give you the idea.

Joy   (ᵔ◡ᵔ)

Love (°◡°♡)  

Embarassment (⌒_⌒;) 

Sympathy (ノ_<。)ヾ(´ ▽ ` )

Anger ヾ(`ヘ´)ﾉﾞ

Sorrow (｡•́︿•̀｡)

Running ε=ε=ε=ε=┌(;￣▽￣)┘  

Cat (=^･ｪ･^=)  

Spider /╲/\╭(ఠఠ益ఠఠ)╮/\╱\

...and if you thought spider was a bit niche, then how about:

Alive among zombies (x(x_(x_x(O_o)x_x)_x)x)

and

Drowning ‿︵‿︵‿︵‿ヽ(°□° )ノ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

?!

There we are. A whole language, new-born - and growing fast!

Nuts and Bolts: The word kaomoji comes from two words in kanji (which is Japanese written in Chinese characters): kao, 顔 meaning face, and moji 文字meaning character.