Parliament without everyone fighting like cats and dogs and otters and bears and beavers and…
yurukyara
Kids in Hikari are raised under Boob Childrearing concepts.
Chiitan’s management claim a city rep in charge of happiness told them “permission wasn’t needed.”
That adorable otter just took one too many blows to the head for the liking of city residents and officials.
Tonko House will take responsibility for bringing Kumamon’s exploits overseas in a future animation project.
Mascot character who debuted in December aims to bring smiles to faces and eyes to her underwear.
Japan’s Coast Guard has been around for 70 years, and mascot Umimaru for 20 – so it’s high time for a Hello Kitty teamup!
The unofficial ambassador for Shibuya and Harajuku makes sure to keep the statue of famously loyal dog Hachiko clean.
Kumamon is the official mascot of Kumamoto Prefecture in southern Japan. Since his debut in 2010, he’s become wildly popular, appearing in all kinds of media and lending his face to uncountable products. By some estimates, he’s pulling down hundreds of billions of yen a year. He’s given a guest lecture at Harvard, despite being mute, and has even met the imperial couple.
But despite this blessed existence, even mascots have bad days. And being in the public eye, those bad days are immortalized on film.
If you went to your town council meeting in your country and told them you wanted to make a cutesy mascot to represent your city, you’d probably get a few smirks from the council members. If you further told them that the character would be androgynous and hardly recognizable as any particular animal, you’d get a few laughs. Then, if you told them it didn’t even need to have a mouth, that it could be frumpy and clutsy, and that this could be a main draw to your town, you’d have been laughed out of the town hall right then and there.
But this is Japan, where characters are biiiig business. The Japanese have taken the concept of Mickey Mouse, Snoopy and The Muppets to a whole new level. With huge success. And now, one junior high school student is hoping to tap into the power of the mascot character to achieve something far more noble trying to get rich: reviving her community and bringing much-needed tourism to the tiny island on which she lives. But she needs your help.
This, RocketNews24 reader, is your chance to get involved in Japan’s mascot frenzy! Submit a character idea to represent this small Japanese island–and who knows, maybe your idea will be chosen! Interested? Read on!