While living in Japan, Hello Kitty was unavoidable. My fringe awareness became a full on, hyper-focused red alert of Hello Kitty presence. She was everywhere. And I mean everywhere like Christmas music the day after Halloween. She was on my student’s pen cases, my co-worker’s desk, my friend’s shoes, jewelry, cups, refrigerator magnets, smocks, spoons, hats, cars, everything! I was suffocating in Kitty-chan. But the suffocating wouldn’t have been so bad if everyone around me didn’t love the suffocation so much.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge a character just because it’s popular. But with Hello Kitty I couldn’t understand for the life of me why she was popular. And I had (at the time) two good reasons why she shouldn’t be.

1. Her design is too simple. White face, two dots, yellow nose. Boring! Great character designs like Bugs Bunny or Gundam Zaku have some complexity or originality to their form. They involve something substantial and imaginative you can hold onto.
2. She’s not _from_ anything. We western-types like our vacuous media characters to have a source, like how Mario is from a video game and Spider-man is from a comic book. A lot of characters I like are paper thin in their depth of character but at least I can say, “I really like the cereal they’re from!”

But despite having nothing to hold onto, a lot of people, many of whom I respected as individuals, held onto Hello Kitty for dear life. So what was I missing? Let’s address these gripes in order.

1. Her Design Is Too Simple

My first complaint was that Hello Kitty’s design was too simple. And therein lies the problem, right? Unless you consider what draws us to cartoon characters in the first place. When you strip an image of its details (shading, texture, etc.) down to its essential elements, it becomes less specific. It is no longer a picture of one thing but a representation of that thing.

This is clearly a picture of Tom Hanks. He may be mistaken for someone else, but generally, most people will know this picture represents Tom Hanks.

This still may be recognized as Tom Hanks, but if you look at it in a different way, maybe it looks like someone you work with. The realistic details have been stripped away and now the image may represent a wider range of types of people.

As we trim away the details, he becomes more ambiguous…

And more able to represent anyone.

Now we are about as nonspecific as you can get. A few dots, some lines and a circle. This is incredibly simple and anyone can draw it. But whose face is being depicted? Is it male or female? Old or young? Without the artist giving details about whose face has been drawn, it is up to the viewer to decide what is being seen.

The less specific the image, the more power the viewer has to interpret it. What do you see when you look at Hello Kitty? She is a simplification of a cat, but what kind of attitude or style is she emitting? Visual storytelling guru, Scott McCloud, has this to say about the cartoon form, of which Hello Kitty is a part:

“The cartoon is a vacuum into which our identity and awareness are pulled, an empty shell that we inhabit which enables us to travel in another realm. We don’t just observe the cartoon, we become it!”

More than likely, what you’re seeing is you! What does Hello Kitty look like to you? Is she cute or sassy? Grown up or childish? Fun or chic? It mostly depends on who you are and what you want her to be. Her blankness draws you in and allows you to interpret her, and then wear or own her in the style you choose.

But in essence, all cartoons can do this. This interpretation of representation is vital to the cartoon form. So what makes Hello Kitty different?

A Game of Cat and Mouth

Hello Kitty’s ability to be interpreted is taken one step further than, say, Betty Boop or Tintin. The advantage Kitty-chan holds is her lack of a mouth. The reason for this is summed up best by Yuko Yamaguchi, the current character designer (meaning “boss”) of Hello Kitty:

“[She doesn't have a mouth] so that people who look at her can project their own feelings onto her face, because she has an expressionless face. Kitty looks happy when people are happy. She looks sad when they are sad. For this psychological reason, we thought she shouldn’t be tied to any emotion – and that’s why she doesn’t have a mouth.”

The power of Hello Kitty’s interpretation now extends a layer deeper, beyond our idea of what she represents into our idea of what she is feeling. This gives her life in our minds, in a way that “mouthed” cartoons can’t. What Mickey Mouse is feeling at any given moment, not counting his situation or environment, can be clearly seen through his mouth. Hello Kitty, lacking this feature, could be feeling anything at any time! And thus whatever we may be feeling can and probably does get transferred onto her face.

2. She’s not from anything

What about my second gripe, the one where I say that Hello Kitty comes from “nothing”? Well, that too is remedied by her inane face. The same way in which she absorbs the interpretations and feelings of her viewer, she also absorbs the surroundings of the designs she inhabits. Put her in a pink dress surrounded by hearts and butterflies, and oh! She is so adorable! Put her in black and white on a designer wallet and how retro chic she becomes! Oh, and put her in a Godzilla costume. She looks right at home there, too.

No matter where you put her that’s where she belongs. And that’s why she can’t “be from” something. Her lack of definition works for her yet again. She’s from “nowhere” and “everywhere” at the same time.

INTRODUCING! Mr. Rounded-Edge Rectangle Head Man!

So there it is! I have unlocked the secret to the multimillion dollar success of Hello Kitty. Coincidentally, I am proud to announce my new character, Mr. Rounded-Edge Rectangle Head Man!

I’ll be putting him on cycling gloves and fanny-packs, so get ready to mail me all your money!

No dice?

Oh wait, I forgot. There is another pair of creations by Sanrio that are not nearly as popular as Hello Kitty:

Patty and Jimmy! Despite being simplified and having no mouth, these two are hideous and unpopular. But they got the formula down, so what’s the problem?

This Little Kitty Went to Market

Kitty-chan’s design, genius though it may be, was not enough to bring her billions right off the bat. Even though she had early success, there was a long process of good luck and good decision-making before she really started raking in the fanbucks.

Hello Kitty creator Yuko Shimizu was tasked with creating six characters for Sanrio in 1974. Among these was an unassuming white cat. Shimizu was keen enough to realize that simplicity was important for the characters she designed, but she didn’t understand the impact of removing Hello Kitty’s mouth.

“I couldn’t express the mouth in a cute way, so I decided not to use it.”

That was the genius move that set Kitty apart. A happy accident. The decision behind the defining feature of this iconic character was a lack of decision.

But Shimizu’s indecision was fruitful and her character was immediately successful among young girls. In the beginning, Hello Kitty was only printed on small gifts like stationery and watches, usually sitting on a couch or cutely flying a bi-plane. The following fifteen or so years saw a steady decline in popularity for Kitty-chan. She remained a mildly popular children’s commodity until the children began to grow up.

In 1994 Sanrio launched Hello Kitty’s “Face Series” to extend her appeal to an older audience. Sanrio had spent twenty years selling Kitty goods to children and had begun to grasp the power of her meaningless face. The attachment of kids to this character was strong and it would be foolish to let that attachment weaken as they grew older. The “Face Series” was Sanrio’s first attempt to market Hello Kitty products to teens and adults. Oh, and it worked. Big time. Biggly large time.

Sanrio continued its smartness in the early 2000s when it conducted research which concluded that one third of people shopping in the U.S. were over eighteen and shopping for themselves. Surprise! Five-year-olds have no money. This led to Kitty goods which encompassed more sophisticated items such as lingerie, guitars and designer watches.

At the present time, Hello Kitty has become empress of the merchandising world. Her malleable visage graces everything for everyone, from dollar bin tissue boxes to designer purses. She is bought by grown women with a sense for high fashion and young girls who “wike kitties.” This cat’s power is astounding.

The White Queen

Do I still hate Hello Kitty? Not at all. I’m not a fan in the traditional sense, but I find the unintentional genius of her design and the business acumen with which she was put to use utterly fascinating. The power of the consumer to mentally project whatever meaning they want onto your product means you lose control of your product, but gain control of the consumer. You basically have the power to sell consumer’s selves to themselves!

The concept of this kind of power inhabiting a modest white cat makes her seem so much more formidable. She has a great power to grant the comfort of her world built around one’s own wishes, but with it maintains the control of all who love her. She is no mere mascot, but a queen! Not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Treacherous as the sea! Stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love her, and despair!

Or perhaps that’s just how I choose to interpret her.

Sources:

• TIME Magazine
• Buying In by Rob Walker
• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
• Wikipedia

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Bonus Wallpapers!

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While people in fur suits are rarely seen outside of Disneyland or college stadiums in the US, mascots in Japan are pretty much everywhere. They’re instrumental in promoting tourism or giving a cute face to an organization.

Virtually every town, city, municipal service, company, sports team, and rail line in Japan has its own mascot. There’s even a mascot school in Tokyo to teach aspiring mascots the skills of the trade.

With so many mascots, you might think that they all become indistinguishable from each other. But in recent years, one mascot has towered over all the rest: Kumamon.

Originally created in 2010 as a mascot for a bullet train line in the city of Kumamoto, Kumamon is a bear (kuma means “bear” in Japanese), who’s become a runaway phenomenon in Japan.

He appears at all sorts of public events, ranging from festivals to TV appearances to meet-and-greets to promote Kumamoto. But somewhere down the line, Kumamon became bigger than Kumamoto.

City mascots are usually meant to promote tourism to its city of origin, but Kumamon’s popularity has completely eclipsed the city he was meant to represent.

In 2011, Kumamon came in first place in an online poll for mascot of the year, beating out a giant bird, and a circle with legs. Stiff competition!

Kumamon’s immense popularity has meant that his face has been stuck on anything with a flat surface. The Japanese are fantastic at marketing themselves and, around Kumamoto especially, Kumamon is everywhere.

There are Kumamon stickers, Kumamon buttons; Kumamon candy, keychains, and bags. And if you love Kumamon enough, you can even get a gravestone with his cheery face on it.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Kumamon merchandise has sold over ^$30 million since his inception.

Kumamon’s immense popularity hasn’t gone unnoticed overseas, either. In the West, Kumamon’s become a minor internet meme:

Like all Japanese fads, Kumamon’s popularity will eventually come to an end. Manufacturers will run out of products to slap Kumamon’s likeness onto, and the big black bear will join Sugi-chan and other figures of Japanese pop culture irrelevance.

But until that time comes, I’m sure that Kumamon’s popularity will be milked for all it’s worth. And hey, maybe after his career in Japan, he can moonlight as a football mascot in America.

The last part of this little series is the “Japanese Mascots” category. We’ve done Ronald McDonald / Colonel Sanders, Mickey / Hello Kitty, Food Mascots, and American Children Shows. Today, we focus on well known Japanese characters. There was a lot of Mario and Luigi out there, so I thought we’d start with that.

Apparently this is what a Koopa Troopa would look like in real life. Here’s a little Mario factoid: In Japan, Bowser is known as Kupa King. The shelled dudes are just Kupas. Oh man, Luigi is kicking some Kupa shell.

This one is kind of along the same line, but a little different. It’s a more realistic version of Super Smash Bros. I love how the Ice Climber is smoking a cig. Kirby? Just leaves me speechless.

Does everyone know Rirakkuma? It’s a combination of “relax” and “kuma” (bear). He’s a super relaxed bear. Now we know why he’s so relaxed.

Gachapin is a young dinosaur (I always thought he looked like a caterpillar) who goes on adventures with his young sasquatch friend.

There’s a bunch of these. He’s going on more adventures, it looks like. There’s one where he battles Darth Vader, Predator, and above, Alien. Never mess with a dinosaur.

Doraemon is one of the most popular characters in japan. He’s a little robotic cat from the future that pulls inventions out of his special pocket. The show works out quite a bit better than I’m making it sound. There’s a ton of Doraemon parodies.

Doraemon can fly, but it didn’t quite look as creepy (or as speedy, I suppose) as this. And the person riding Doraemon? Looks kind of old. Things really got creepy between those two over the years…

Nova is kind of old news since they went out of business, but they have a super well-known mascot. It’s supposed to be a rabbit… though, for some reason it has a beak. There’s all sorts of fun you can do with something like this. For example…

Here’s what the Nova Usagi should really look like. I’m trying to think of what this reminds me of. Maybe you can help.

Then, of course, there’s the super muscly parody. For some reason all character parodies always seem to have a very muscly version. Oh, and the “Can you Speak English” refers to the fact that Nova was (is?) an English teaching company (a really crummy one, though).

Want to see more? Here’s some links:

Japanese Mascots 1

Japanese Mascots 2

Gachapin 1

Gachapin 2

Miffy The Rabbit

Doraemon

Mario

Want to check out all the parodies? Click here.

So, there you have it. That was the last part of the series. I hope you enjoyed it (or at least didn’t get too irritated by it), and now we’ll try to get back to normal (or at least as normal as we can get). If you enjoyed, and look forward to see more, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

If you thought American children shows were safe from this series, I have no idea what you were thinking. We’ve hit Fast Food Mascots, Mickey & Hello Kitty, Food, and today we’re hitting Winnie The Pooh, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Sesame Street. Prepare for your childhood to be ruined.

These two images definitely have an extra dose of creep sauce on them. This definitely has “chimo” written all over it. Let’s move on quickly. I don’t like Winnie the Pedophile.

I always thought Thomas was plenty creepy on his own, so these images don’t do much for me. Thomas is really popular in Japan (and all over the world, I suppose), so I was surprised that I couldn’t find more of this chipper little train.

This one basically says “I love cookies, but because I’m crazy I sometimes eat friends who have similar colors to cookies.” I’m trying to figure out who he’s eating. Any ideas? I’m thinking Snuffalufagus.

Here’s another crazy Sesame Street one. Poor everyone. I knew there was something wrong with Earnie. His head was shaped funny.

Elmo seems to be getting the short end of the stick. Big Bird, on the other hand, looks like a psychotic Chocobo. You know, I’ve always wondered why Big Bird wasn’t a huge ferocious yellow monster. This one makes more sense than I want it to.

Want to see more images like these? Check out the following links:

Pooh 1

Thomas & Sesame Street

More Pooh

The next part of this article will be the “miscellaneous” one, and will mostly cover Japanese mascots. It’ll come out sometime tonight, and end the series (for all of you who are tired of this by now!) If you want to get updated every time another part to this series comes out, please subscribe to our RSS Feed. Or, if you like e-mails, you can get an e-mail every time we update as well by going here. See you with another “character parody” article soon!

Previously, we’ve covered Ronald McDonald, Colonel Sanders, Hello Kitty, and Mickey Mouse, but today we’re going to delve into food items being parodied. Things like the image above, which are just a little too sexy creepy to eat. Really, it looks like it should be called SM&M. Why do you think he’s showing his pinky like that? That’s the Japanese hand-symbol for boyfriend!

There’s a longstanding obsession and devotion to food in Japan, so it’s only natural that food gets some attention. Here we go!

Hopefully this makes you feel guilty the next time you eat M&M’s. Poor Yellow M&M. It looks like his boyfriend is abandoning him.

You’ve never experienced creepy baby mayonnaise if you’ve never been to Japan (something worth trying!). The image above refers to Kewpie Mayonnaise, probably the most popular brand of mayonnaise in Japan, which is made a bit differently from American Mayo (I think it tastes much better than the stuff we have).

Japanese mayonnaise is typically made with apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar and a small amount of MSG, which gives it a different flavor profile from mayonnaise made from distilled vinegar. It is most often sold in soft plastic squeeze bottles. Its texture is thinner than most Western commercial mayonnaise. A variety containing karashi (Japanese mustard) is also common [source]

If you’re interested in more Japanese mayonnaise related things, check out Kewpie’s own English propaganda page, or take a look at this all-mayonnaise restaurant. Or, why not watch this Tarako dance (which includes the Kewpie baby).

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAtBNOKT8jM]

I feel like there’s a Broadway play in it for those girls.

Sad Mr. Pepsi Blue. Didn’t sell too hot anywhere. That’s probably because they used Blue-1 to color it (somewhat controversial coloring banned in several countries), not to mention it tasted like liquefied berry flavored cotton candy.

Another version of Pepsi Blue that I remember is “Pepsi Blue: Hawaii.” This added some pineapply taste to the already nasty berry flavor. I’m sure you can guess how well that did. Kind of makes me think “Nuca-Cola Quantum” from Fallout 3.

Then, last but not least, there’s this Pocky guy. This one’s my favorite, by far. Definitely a very “Japanese” sense of humor. I think Pocky is pretty well known in America, though feel free to prove me wrong. Basically, they are bready cookie sticks that are 75% covered in chocolate (or various other flavors). My favorite is “Man Pocky,” because, you know, women can’t handle that manly (more bitter chocolate) taste. Oh Japan.

So, if you want to see more defiled food, check out these links:

Food 1

Food 2

The next part of this article will be about parodied American Children Shows, and will come in the next 12 hours! If you want to get updated every time another part to this series comes out, please subscribe to our RSS Feed. Or, if you like e-mails, you can get an e-mail every time we update as well by going here. See you with another “character parody” article soon!

In our previous post, we covered Ronald McDonald (i.e. “Donald”) and Colonel Sanders. This time, we’ll be looking at perhaps two of the most well known mascots in the world: Hello Kitty and Mickey Mouse.

Hello Kitty is owned by the company Sanrio, which has a bunch of other cute characters as well, and Mickey? Well, I should hope you know where he comes from.

Let’s start with the most disturbing image first and then work our way down (Sort of NSFW).

And, before you have time to ask any questions, here’s where this image came from. It’s from a comedy sketch titled (in English) “The After School Electromagnetic Wave Club.” Check out the video below for way too much information, if you know what I mean.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgemCAVowZc']

See what I mean about starting with the most disturbing image first?

This has to be the coolest New Years card ever. If you’re doing the whole living in Japan thing, you gotta send out New Years cards. You might want to pick something a little more… subtle, though.

Here’s another New Years card. Everyone remember Pokemon? It looks like the years weren’t too good on Pikachu. In the meantime, Mickey was working out, it seems…

It worries me how good these look together… I think that means it’s time to move on to Hello Kitty

I don’t even know what to say about this one. What really tops things off is the eyes on the right. Watch him… er… her… eyes.

Remember this article about Thai Police having to wear Hello Kitty arm bands when they weren’t good? This picture takes that concept a step further. Several, big, steps.

And last but not least, it’s “Long Hello Kitty.” If you’ve ever seen the Internet before, you’ve probably run into long cat at one time or another. I’m surprised nobody came up with this sooner.

If you want to see more Hello Kitty or Mickey Mouse parodies, check out the following links:

Sanrio Characters (Hello Kitty)

Hello Kitty 2

Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse 2

Mickey Mouse 3

The next part of this article will be food related, and will come in the next 12 hours! If you want to get updated every time another part to this series comes out, please subscribe to our RSS Feed. Or, if you like e-mails, you can get an e-mail every time we update as well by going here. See you with another “character parody” article soon!