Japan is a country with a lot of cute characters. Starting with the obvious ones from anime and manga like Totoro and Doraemon, there’s also ones featured in video games like Pikachu or Sonic, and corporate symbols like Hello Kitty. Going further we can delve into the deep ecosystem of costumed mascots that can be found everywhere throughout Japan. Finally we can pile on all of the imported characters from North America and Europe.
All these cuddly animals and monsters running around beg the question: Which one is the most popular amongst children? To answer that, we have the semiannual Characters and Children Marketing Survey results which were recently published in Japan. Let’s take a look.