But you’ll need a bit of good luck to have the Sanrio bad boy on your gyudon bowl.

Having a beef bowl in front of you is a surefire way to put a smile on your face. Tasty, satisfying, and surprisingly healthy, gyudon (as beef bowls are called in Japanese) is one of Japan’s great comfort foods.

But you know what would give us an even bigger smile? A beef bowl with Hello Kitty on the bowl!

That’s what’s on offer from Japan’s beef bowl king, Yoshinoya. On Monday the gyudon chain kicked off its Yoshinoya at Home campaign, a promotion starting just in time for summer vacation season in Japan. Joining Kitty-chan in the campaign is fellow Sanrio star Badtz-maru. As the Yoshinoya at Home name implies, the promotion is for Yoshinoya’s frozen packs of stewed beef and onion which you heat up at home and serve over rice for a semi make-it-yourself gyudon.

▼ 2023 marks 30 years since Yoshinoya’s frozen gyudon topping packs went on sale, and in the illustration here Badtz-maru sullenly points out “It’s my 30th anniversary too!”

In addition to the Yoshinoya bowl, Hello Kitty and Badtz-maru are appearing on a special fukin (dish towel/wiping cloth) that also features the Yoshinoya logo.

▼ Preview images helpfully point out that the 30 by 40-centimeter (11.8 by 15.7-inch) towel is “cute ♪” (キュート♪).

Neither of these crossover items can be purchased by themselves, though. The towel is included in three bundles being offered for sale online, all called an “Original Shirayuki Fukin Set” (Shirayuki being the name of the company that makes the towel). The smallest towel-inclusive set, with five packs of beef bowl toppings and two of pork bowl toppings, plus pickled ginger, is priced at 3,999 yen (US$28), and it’s also part of a 4,124-yen set of 10 beef bowl toppings and an 8,284-yen set of 20 beef bowl toppings.

▼ The 10-beef bowl topping set

Order any of those three sets online between now and August 31, and you can enter a lottery to win one of 50 Hello Kitty/Badtz-maru/Yoshinoya bowls.

▼ “The special illustration is lovely,” Kitty-chan remarks, and the quality of the porcelain itself should be quite high too, as the bowl is a Saga Prefecture-made Arita-yaki piece, one of Japan’s most treasured ceramics styles.

The Hello Kitty/Badtz-maru towel-inclusive packs can be ordered online through the Yoshinoya online shop as well as Rakuten, Yahoo! Shopping, and d Shopping (here, here, here, and here). And if you need some musical accompaniment while using fukin to dry your dishes, this should do the trick.

Source: PR Times
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: Yoshinoya, PR Times
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