End of the line for JR East’s adorable mascot for its revolutionary train fare payment system.
For 25 years, a penguin has been the symbol of convenient train travel in Tokyo and east Japan. In 2001, East Japan Railway Company/JR East revolutionized how commuters and travelers get about when it launched Suica, the country’s first major prepaid IC card for train fares, and from day one its mascot was the Suica Penguin, appearing right there on the card itself.
Suica caught on very quickly, especially when the system was expanded to let cardholders tap their card not only to pay for JR train rides, but for fares on lines operated by other rail companies and buses, plus purchases at vending machines, restaurants, and stores of all sorts. So for the last quarter-century, many people in Japan have been seeing the Suica Penguin multiple times a day.
Back in November, though, JR East revealed plans to sever ties with the character, and now comes more sad news, as the company has announced that the final cards featuring the Suica penguin have already been produced and shipped. In other words, once JR East stations use their current stocks of penguin Suica cards, that’s the end for them, and no more will be coming.
“Regarding the currently produced Suica cards printed with Suica Penguin illustrations, sales will be concluded once the inventory has been exhausted at each sales point,” says JR East in its statement. “Subsequent Suica cards will bear no [Penguin] illustration.” In addition, the Penguin will be vanishing from Apple Wallet Suica users’ icon and in-app images, though the timing of its erasure hasn’t yet been specified. A similar revision is likely for users of the Mobile Suica app and its on-screen virtual card representation.
▼ So if you like seeing this guy on your phone, now’s probably a good time to take a screen shot to remember him by.
JR East hasn’t said why it’s getting rid of the Suica Penguin, instead glibly framing it as the character “graduating,” borrowing a term from the Japanese idol/show business industry for when someone’s current role is coming to an end. Whatever the reason is, it can’t be a lack of popularity. Suica Penguin merch, such as stationery, hand towels, and plushies, have been consistently popular since the character’s debut, and Suica Penguin imagery regularly plays a role in JR East’s advertising and promotional materials. As further proof of how well-loved the Penguin is, there are a slew of farewell celebrations in the works, including a Suica Penguin fan appreciation event in Tokyo’s Ueno Station scheduled for October 30 to November 4, a special retrospective “Penguin Years” website and video, and commemorative novelty item giveaways for shoppers at branches of Pensta, the Suica Penguin specialty shop chain.
▼ Clearly. JR East is aware of how loved the character is.
▼ “Because you were there.”
It’s not like JR East has suddenly soured on the concept of mascot characters as a whole. In the same announcement for the end of Suica Penguin card production, the company also says “Also, once the baton touch to a new mascot character has been made, the new character is scheduled to appear on the Mobile Suica app and the like.”
Setting aside the unsettling lack of a specific mention of a physical Suica card (which comes one month after a Tokyo subway station installed new ticket gates that don’t accept IC card payment or paper tickets), there are really only two logical theories as to why JR East would be adopting this sort of “It aint broke, so let’s fix it!” strategy. Ditching an already well-known and popular mascot might make sense if the company were going to sign another, preexisting character who’s even more popular, like say, Pikachu, Hello Kitty, or Chiikawa. However, when it comes to picking a permanent-basis pitch-character for Suica, JR probably wouldn’t want one that’s already so strongly associated with another organization that could overshadow the Suica payment service.
▼ Sure, limited-time collaborations like a Pokémon stamp rally or station decorations are cool, but no one is ever going to look at Pikachu and think “Oh, the Suica guy!” until after they’ve thought about Pokémon and a whole bunch of its associated anime and video games first.
That leaves the plan of developing and introducing a completely new character, but the best-case outcome for that, a charismatic and recognizable mascot, would still just put JR East back to where they already are with the Suica Penguin.
Taking all that into consideration, odds are the Suica Penguin is “graduating” due to licensing issues. Though the Japanese public instantly associates the Penguin with Suica and JR, the character wasn’t internally designed. The Penguin was actually created by illustrator Chiharu Sakazaki and debuted in a picture book in 1998, then was licensed by JR East three years later for use as the Suica mascot in a deal that would rocket it to nationwide fame. With JR East intending to expand the bank account-linking functionality of Suica cards in the near future, there could be new aspects to the system that aren’t covered under the previous licensing contract, and perhaps the two parties were unable to negotiate a mutually agreeable contract. Or it could simply be that, with Suica having become such a massive and widely used cashless payment system, JR East believes that any mascot associated with it will represent a lucrative and steady stream of merchandising revenue, and would rather have a character that the company owns outright and doesn’t have to pay licensing fees and royalties for.
But again, whatever the reason, once the current batch of Suica Penguin cards are gone, that’ll be the end of the era, so if you’re a fan, grab one while you can.
Source: JR East via Norimono News via Yahoo! Japan News
Top image: JR East
Insert images: SoraNews24, JR East (1, 2), SoraNews24
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