Mascot character who debuted in December aims to bring smiles to faces and eyes to her underwear.

With so many mascot characters vying for attention in Japan, you have to do something special to stand out from the crowd. Soft Kuriinu, for example, helps clean up the streets of Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward (while also being a bright pink smiling dog turd), while Kan-chan is, to our knowledge, the only cuddly character who really wants us to know how great enemas are.

And now there’s Nowa Yukigami, a cute cat whose secret technique for winning fans is flashing her panties.

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Hailing from Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido, unofficial mascot Nowa seems to have a highly developed fashion sense, since unlike other characters who have one signature outfit, she’s appeared in a variety of ensembles. Short hemlines are always involved, though, and they become even shorter when Nowa lifts her skirt up to give crowds a better look.

While Nowa doesn’t necessarily promote herself as a “sexy” character, she seems keenly aware that her skirts are of a length that’s always on the verge of showing off her undies.

But when gusts of wind or natural lines of sight don’t provide visual access to her unmentionables, Nowa will sometimes do the dirty work herself, and in the case of the sequence of photos below, even coyly put a finger to her lips afterwards, as if her public pantie peek provision wasn’t done in plain sight of anyone in the area.

All this bold behavior makes the times that Nowa isn’t doing anything provocative (which is most of the time) all the more surreal.

Though Japan has an unabashed love of lacy undergarments, it’s not clear how much actual demand there is for mascot cat character panty action. Still, this is the country that made a lethargic, half-cooked egg a pop culture icon, so perhaps Nowa’s star, like her skirts, will continue to rise.

Sources: Otakomu, Gotochi Kyara Johokyoku