Japan’s special take on cute is unique enough that we even borrow the word “kawaii” in English to talk about it. But although there is some cultural variation in the details, cute is very much a universal concept, and you might be surprised at the fundamental role it plays in human psychology.

What is Cute, Exactly?

What makes something cute? Think about how characters and toys based on animals look compared to their real-life counterparts. Compare the bear above to this teddy bear:

Or take our friend the ubiquitous tanuki statue and his wild cousin:

…versus…

What are the differences? The snouts are shorter (in some teddy bears it’s gone, or close to it). The head and eyes are big and round. The legs are stubby and rounder and generally, everything is softer and more rounded than in real life.

But why are these the particular features that turn a dangerous animal that could bite your head off, like a bear, into something that makes us go “awwwwwww”? Scientists have actually thought about this subject, starting with the zoologist and ethologist Konrad Lorenz in the 1940s.

Lorenz proposed that the features that make up “cute” are all characteristic of human infants. We coo and squeal at the sight of heads that are large for their bodies, little button noses, and chubby, soft bodies. It also doesn’t hurt if the critter has a floppy, clumsy gait like a human toddler.

Basically, the more a a cartoon character or animal is like a human baby, the cuter it is. One interesting thing that shows this is the importance of round forward-facing eyes like humans have. An animal with eyes on the front of its face, like a panda, looks cuter to us than one with eyes on the sides of its head, like a horse. (If you don’t believe it, check out the next photo, which shows that if you want to turn a a horse into something absolutely horrifyingly cute, you move its eyes to the front of its face.)

Why The Short Face?

Lorenz theorized that there’s an evolutionary reason that these characteristics make you want to grab something and cuddle it. Human babies need a lot of care. If you’re a giraffe, your baby can stand up and run within moments of birth. If you’re a frog, you dump a whole bunch of eggs somewhere and get on with your life, figuring at least one of your hundreds of offspring will manage to survive on its own. But if you’re a human, your baby needs constant attention for months.

So the reason we go “awwww” in response to babies has an obvious evolutionary explanation: the people who reacted that way to round, soft creatures with big heads had babies that survived better. Those babies grew up to have more babies, and passed on the genes for wanting to cuddle things that look that way. On the other hand, the people who didn’t react that way to cute features would be more likely to leave their babies lying around in dangerous places, forget to feed them, etc. So resistance to cuteness would tend to eliminate itself from the gene pool.

This response is now so ingrained in our brains that we react the same way even when it has no evolutionary advantage to our species. We’re just as smitten by pandas as by human infants, despite the fact that they have no benefit to the survival of the human race whatsover. And we even create stuff that has those features, like Hello Kitty, sewage-treatment-plant mascots, and teddy bears. So if you’re one of those people who thinks all that cute stuff is stupid? Blame it on the babies.

This Is Your Brain On Cute

Psychologists have actually experimentally tested Lorenz’s theory that those specific features of “cute” result in a care-giving impulse. One study, for example, manipulated photos of real babies to make their heads more or less round, etc, and found that photos with more of those characteristics were rated as cuter, and made subjects feel more strongly that they wanted to care for them.

But research has also shown that cuteness has other effects – both positive and negative.

There’s one recent study out of Japan that’s probably going to be good news for everyone reading this. You’re on the Internet, so the odds are high that you spend some of your time at work looking at photos and videos of cats – or, if you’re not a cat fan, of whatever other cute animal floats your boat.

No doubt you try to hide this apparently time-wasting behavior, but instead, maybe you should send your boss a link to this article titled The Power of Kawaii: Viewing Cute Images Promotes a Careful Behavior and Narrows Attentional Focus. The research reported shows that looking at pictures of cute animals might actually help you to do your work better.

Two different kinds of tasks were used in the experiment. One was a game called Bilibili Dr. Game which is like the American game Operation. If you’ve never played, it’s a game where you have to remove very tiny body parts from very small openings on a “patient”, using very tiny tweezers.

The subjects played the game, and then they were shown photos: Either of dogs and cats, or of cute puppies and kittens. Then they played the game again, and the people who saw puppies and kittens got better scores the second time around. They also took longer to play the game, so the researchers concluded that seeing cute animals made them do their work more deliberately and carefully.

If your job doesn’t involve the same kind of fine motor control as the game of Operation, you may think this study won’t convince your boss to count looking at Cute Overload as work. Never fear! The experimenters also used another task, which involved looking for certain numbers in a large matrix.

Subjects also did better on this task after looking at photos of puppies and kittens, so the researchers concluded that cute animals made people more attentive. And there’s no job that doesn’t benefit from careful attention, right? So surf away for the those cute kitties.

Cute: The Dark Side

Other research has shown that the effect of cuteness isn’t always so benign. If you’ve ever told a baby that it was so cute you wanted to eat it up, you’ve experienced the effect studied in another recent study: cute animals actually make people feel more aggressive.

Subjects were shown a slideshow including cute baby animals, animals in silly situations, and “neutral” adult animals. One group was asked to rate how much the photos made them want to squeeze something or give an aggressive “want to eat it up” sort of response. The cute pictures made them feel that way more often. Then, another group actually put their money where their mouth was: they were popping bubble wrap while watching the slideshow. They popped an average of 120 bubbles when looking at the cute photos, compared to 100 for neutral ones and 80 for the silly ones.

Cute Clouds The Mind

Maybe being more aggressive at popping bubble wrap seems like no big risk, but there are lots of real-life situations where our uncontrollable response to cuteness affects our judgement about important matters.

For example, you probably wouldn’t hesitate to walk right up to a cute little Chihuahua and pet it, while you might cross the street to avoid a big dog. Turns out you’ve got it exactly backwards. There are fashions in what breeds are considered dangerous, but from German shepherds in the 1960s through Rottweilers and Dobermans to pit bulls nowadays, the breeds considered dangerous are always large ones. But the truth is, as this study showed, the dogs that are most aggressive towards humans are cute little guys: Dachshunds, Chihuahuas and Jack Russell Terriers.

Even professionals who work with animals are not immune to the bad influence of cuteness. A paper in the journal Conservation Biology showed that cute animals are much more likely to be studied by scientists and to get funding for their conservation. Apparently even scientists aren’t attracted to animals because they’re important to their ecosystems or more endangered: it’s more important that they be fuzzy, with 500 times more published studies on large furry mammals than on slimy little amphibians.

Cute animals also cloud our judgment about our fellow humans. An experiment in France found that women were three times more likely to give a guy their phone number if he was walking a cute dog, and another showed that a panhandler more than doubled his income when he had a dog.

So if you always considered “cute” to practically equal “harmless,” maybe you better think again. I have to wonder, how many other ways is cute messing with our minds that science hasn’t found out about yet? How is this affecting the psychology Japan, the “Kingdom of Cute”? Will they all just one day snap and eat each other up?

You know, that Hello Kitty…. I always thought there was something a little sinister about her. Now I know why.

Bonus Wallpapers!

[1280x800] ∙ [2560x1600]

Additional Reference:

• New York Times: The Cute Factor

You already know what I’m talking about: Hello Kitty, Pikachu, Rilakkuma, and Doraemon (to name a few). They are, after all, the characters that have made Japan the “Nation Of Cute.” While these characters are definitely “the mainstream” (so much so that even outside of Japan you probably will recognize them all), there is another group of “cute” characters out there that you probably have not heard of. Does Kobitodukan, Lerch-san, or Gloomy Bear ring any bells?

Kimochi Warui + Kawaii = KimoKawaii

When I was in Japan last summer, I noticed some really strange characters mixed in with the usual flurry of fluffy alpacas and Pokemon. These strange creatures had the outside skins of mushrooms, peaches, and plants, but on the inside they looked like old men in a perpetual state of shock. When I asked my friend about them, she replied that they were called Kobitodukan (こびとづかん) and were really popular, especially among high school girls who think that they’re cute

Cute? Cute?! How can something this strange be considered cute, I thought. “They’re supposed to be gross, and that’s what makes them cute. It’s called kimo-kawaii, or gross-cute,” my friend explained.

At first I was bewildered by the concept, but just as it took me three painful tries to go from hating the fermented soybean dish natto to loving it, the more that I saw Kobitodukan, the more I began to tolerate them. Before I knew it, I had a Kobitodukan pencil case, keychain, card game, guidebook, candy holder, and assorted stickers. Kimo-kawaii had won me over just like it had won over the rest of Japan.

Kobitodukan themselves were created by Toshitaka Nabata in his children’s picture book, Kobitodukan (which translates roughly to “dwarf encyclopedia”). These Kobito dwarves are explained in a poetic fashion, saying that:

“They are the ones who perform the actions that fill us with mystery. They are the ones that make the grass rustle when there is no wind and who fold the edges of toilet paper into triangles.”

But it’s not just the Kobitodukan that are considered kimo-kawaii. There’s a whole slurry of other characters out there that fall within this increasingly popular category.

Nameko – He’s A “Fun Guy!”

Have you ever heard of a mushroom acting as a detective’s assistant? Nameko (marketed in English as “Funghi”), a talking mushroom, started off in a video game and now embellishes many apps, keychains, and folders galore.
In fact, you can hardly walk a block in Japan without walking into a Nameko UFO catcher (most likely Viet will be cursing while putting in another 1000 yen into the machine… “last time… last time…” he’ll mutter under his breath).

Funghi’s official website says “His lovable expressions and unpredictable behavior make him super popular!” If a talking mushroom wasn’t kimochi warui enough, his skin is described as “slippery, soft, and shiny” and instead of talking, he can express emotions by saying “nnf nnf”

[yframe url='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2mFDFUTKzQ']

He even has a whole music video about him! There’s nothing like watching a mushroom sing and dance to a catchy tune!

Kimo-Kawaii City Mascots

If you’re traveling in Japan, you’ll see plenty of mascots, and not just for sports teams. In Japan, many cities have their own own mascots, or yuru kyara. There are so many (over a thousand) that they cover a wide spectrum of cute.  A while back, Hashi wrote an article about his favorite mascots, which includes some that are kimo-kawaii (or maybe just kimoi) enough to be mentioned here.

Manbe-kun

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKKRoPn19SU']

Manbe-kun is the mascot for the town of Oshamanbe located in Hokkaido. His physical mix of sea-creatures that make up his body and his silent disposition combine to make something that’s just plain weird.

Funasshi

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5waRRLnQTA']

Funashi represents Funabashi city and vaguely resembles a pear. Although he doesn’t seem very gross standing by himself, when he jumps around (which is very often) you can understand why he might fit into this category.

Sento-kun

Nara’s city mascot, Sento-kun represents his town through his Buddhist monk appearance, reindeer horns and “amiable disposition.” He has not been completely well-received throughout his life, but has continued to thrive due to that those who love him, really love him.

Lerch-san

Lerch-san (pronounced reruhi-san) represents the snowy areas of Niigata prefecture, and is in fact based off of  real-life guy Theodor Edler von Lerch, who supposedly first brought skiing to Japan. I had the pleasure of meeting the mascot at a shopping center a few years ago. (Kimo-)Kawaii!

Blood and Guts- Grotesque Kawaii

Although kimo-kawaii has been a recent fad, Japan has always had a relationship with creating strange things. Similar to the kimo-kawaii is the grotesque-cute or “guro-kawaii”, which is a step more extreme. Those who know Gloomy Bear know guro-kawaii. Gloomy Bear, which has had a surge of popularity overseas, is a teddy bear character who brutally murders his child owner- but he’s so cute while he does it! Although more than a little disturbing, I can see why it would be popular with kids going through a goth-phase. Gloomy bear seems like just the thing embrace if you want to be edgy, but still cute.

Speaking of edgy, if you “look” around Harajuku (and the rest of Japan) you may “see” something called “eyeball decorations.” Japanese girls are ripping out the eyeballs of their friends and are sewing them on their bags and jackets (just kidding.) But eyeballs are embellishing many fashion accessories, and are considered cute by many. Accompanying the eyeballs can be bones or other blood-splattered body parts parts. Adorable!

While this sort of fashion can be seen in Japan it also exists overseas, even in America, in fact! A lot of times it seems like there’s some inspiration going on, one way or another.

Guro-Kawaii Outside Of Japan?

Take for example the American animation Happy Tree Friends, which if you do not know, is a cartoon where cute fluffy animals inflict horrifying levels of violence and gore upon each other. It’s not Japanese, but I have heard various Japanese high school girls tell me that they love the show. Why? I honestly do not know. Personally, I can’t watch a whole video without cringing and looking away. Seriously, watch at your own discretion. Meccha kawaii~!

[yframe url='http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D165VjNKRNdw']

The idea of something being both aesthetically unpleasing yet cute at the same time is being accepted both in Japan and outside of it, whether it is for shock factor or for remembrance, and shows around the English-speaking world have also used bursts of gross and grotesque in the mainstream. (Spongebob or Ren and Stimpy, anyone?)

Guro and Kimo Kawaii in the flesh

If we’re going to talk about guro-kawaii, we have to talk about her. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, the supreme overlord of Harajuku, is responsible for earworms such as PONPONPON, Candy Candy, and Tsukematsukeru, definitely embraces the concepts of kimo-kawaii and guro-kawaii.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzC4hFK5P3g']

Kyary is responsible for many strange (often kimo/guro-kawaii) fads, the perpetuation of eyeball fashions (“see” above), as well as a recent fashion idea of using makeup to emphasize the bags under your eyes to make them look bigger- which is strange to some and cute to others.

Kyary herself states that her image is one of the main focuses of her musical career. She said in an interview once that “I love grotesque things. My concept is scary things that become traumatic with their cuteness. There are so many “just cute” things in the world, so I add grotesque, scary and even shocking materials like eyeballs and brains to balance out the cuteness.”

Almost Zen like with that balance. Wash on… wash off… Ommmmm.

But… Why?

So why are Kobitodukan, eyeball accessories, and Kyary so popular? Is it  the Japanese love of the strange in a society where most are not strange? Are people getting bored of the traditional soft vanilla-type Sanrio cute? The strange is what initially shocks the consumer, and is more interesting than the plain cute. And once they get past the initial shock, they become more open to the idea of it being “cute”, especially when the media and their peers are also calling these things cute. Japanese society is what gives these things the names “kimo-kawaii” and “guro-kawaii”, and once a name is given, the concept comes along with it.

So go forth, Japanese schoolgirls! Bring more kimo-guro-kawaii into the world for the rest of us to enjoy! We will continue your legend by calling these things cute as well, though maybe it’ll take a little getting used to. Although guro-kawaii has been accepted more outside of Japan with things such as Happy Tree Friends, kimo-kawaii still has a ways to go, I think, as I am reminded almost daily when people see my Kobito keychain. “What the hell is that?” or “That’s kind of creepy,” are things I hear a lot. I’m sure the more that I tell people that my kakuremomojiri Kobitodukan keychain is cute, the more it will rub off on someone at some point.

So let’s see, did it work? Let me know how you’re feeling about all of this in the comments. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder? (That is, unless said eye is on your handbag)

Time To Coloring Book!

For those of you who still love coloring books (or have kids) our (not) kimo-kawaii artist Aya made you a coloring book page out of the header. How fun is that? Just click the image below to get to a full size.

Also, if you want this image as your very own desktop background, you can do so by clicking below:

2560 x 1600

We’ve written about Maru before in our roundup of Japanese cat videos and in our list of awesome Japanese YouTubers, but we thought that we’d write about Maru again for one reason: Maru’s 6^th birthday just recently passed (May 24^th).

In celebration of Maru’s 6^th birthday, his anonymous owner created a video montage of some of his best moments from 2012:

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. With 259 videos with over 200 million views, you could probably call in sick to work and spend at least a week watching nothin’ but Maru videos; and I gotta say, I wouldn’t blame you.

Maru’s biggest claim to fame is his love of cardboard boxes—jumping into them, sliding into them, and just generally trying to stuff his chubby little frame into any kind of container that he possibly can.

But there are plenty of other great Maru videos that will make you neglect your own cat to watch a Japanese cat on the internet (because that’s where we are as the human race now).

For more of Maru, check out his YouTube channel or official blog.

Wallpapers and GIFs!

Desktop background (1280×800)
Desktop background (2560×1440)

Animated GIF (700×438)
Animated GIF (1280×800)

Pre-teen and teen idols abound; for example, AKB48’s Karen Iwata is only 14 years old, and Ryou Hashimoto, a Johnny’s Jr member, will turn 12 this October. Adult female idols giggle and strike childish poses: all pigeon-toed, wide-eyed innocence, while their male counterparts play childish games bordering on the ridiculous on TV shows.

Even traditionally macho institutions, such as the police and the armed forces, are fronted by a bevy of decidedly kawaii, un-macho mascots.

But why? Just why is kawaii everywhere in Japan?

Data! Data! Data! I Can’t Make Bricks Without Clay!

So let’s begin at the beginning. What exactly is kawaii?

The physical attributes considered kawaii are basically those that coincide with childlike features – large eyes, for example. This is thanks to the proliferation of manga, whose characters (almost?) always have oversized eyes. This in turn was due to the influence of “Bambi” and “Snow White” on Osamu Tezuka, the Father of Manga. In fact, until Disney’s animated movies flooded into the country during the Allied Occupation (1945-1951), the Japanese depicted themselves with stereotypical Asian features, often with smaller than life eyes in ukiyo-e (浮世絵) woodblock prints and e-maki (絵巻) scroll paintings.

Large heads and small, soft-looking bodies with an air of helplessness are also considered kawaii – think fluffy kittens, chubby babies… These features are clearly seen in various merchandise characters, although in highly exaggerated form. The soft and cuddly Tarepanda (たれぱんだ), for instance, is so helpless he can’t even walk!

Tarepanda gets around by rolling over at the top speed of 2.75 miles/hour.

In the same vein, to behave in a kawaii way is to behave childlike. The goal is to seem innocent and naive, weak and submissive, and utterly dependent on others. Paradoxically, kawaii is also supposed to be unconscious and natural, yet the childlikeness aspired to is completely bogus and highly romanticized – achieved by, quite literally, faking it: by burikko suru (ぶりっ子する), or “to fake-child” it.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: The Origins of Kawaii and Burikko

The word kawaii is actually a relatively modern word, and only became widespread during the 1970s. Prior to this, the term used was kawayushi (かわゆし), which meant shy and embarrassed, but also pathetic, vulnerable, lovable, and small. Not surprisingly, contemporary kawaii has hints of weak and pitiful – sometimes cute and pitiful are even the same thing.

Buru Buru Dog (ぶるぶるドッグ) is tiny, constantly trembling, and teary-eyed: a perfect example of cute + pitiful = kawaii. Even kawaisou (かわいそう), which itself is derived from kawaii, means pathetic, poor, and pitiable.

The appearance of kawaii in the 1970s coincided with the start of an underground movement in writing. For no apparent reason, teens began to write in childishly rounded characters, liberally punctuated with random English words, cartoon hearts, and the like. Interestingly, those that used maru-ji (丸字) or “round writing,” as it came to be known, were mostly older teenagers. This meant it was a consciously adopted style, and not due to any real inability to write properly: the childish writing was completely contrived.

Maru-ji, koneko-ji, manga-ji… regardless of what it was called, by the 1980s, this childlike writing style was rife: some schools banned it entirely, and teachers refused to mark tests with answers written in that style.

The emergence of maru-ji coincided with a sudden craze of young adults acting kawaii – although the relation between the two, if any, is unclear. What is certain is that the childlike behavior was also completely contrived – I mean, they weren’t children, after all. So the baby talk, the pastel and lace, and the predilection for kawaii trinkets? Nothing but fakery. Besides, it’s not as if they were being entirely innocent – the saccharine nyan nyan suru (ニャンニャンする) or “to meow” is a burikko term for “to flirt” or “to have sex.”

Besides the wide-eyed, innocent expressions and childlike poses, another trademark of a burikko is exclaiming Hazukashii! (恥ずかしい) or “I’m so embarrassed!” even though it’s clear they’re not.

Naturally, those that engaged in such childlike fakery became known as burikko (ぶりっ子), or “fake child,” which of course spawned the burikko suru verb that I mentioned earlier.

Well, I Will Not Grow Up. You Cannot Make Me!

In the West, adulthood is commonly associated with freedom and independence – not so in Japan.

In Japan, adulthood is seen as a period of hard, thankless, never-ending work to fulfill the overwhelming sekinin (責任) or “responsibility” to one’s family and employer, and to society. Adulthood also means putting aside individuality and freedom to abide by the rules of honne (本音) and tatemae (建前), the unbending social rules by which Japanese society operates. With such bleak prospects, it’s easy to see the appeal of childhood, albeit a highly romanticized one – and what easier way to rebel against society’s expectations and to hold onto the simplicity and happiness of childhood, than to be kawaii?

In a nutshell, tatemae is the face one shows to society, namely the behavior and opinions that society expects. Honne is one’s true feelings and desires, which if contrary to tatemae must be kept hidden to maintain social harmony. The gap between them may be substantial – and can, quite understandably, cause extreme internal conflict. Not everyone can reconcile the difference between the two: at one extreme, people like Tanaka-san choose to fight the lonely fight; at the other, they withdraw into their rooms or homes and become hikikomori (引きこもり).

In any case, those that struggle with honne and tatemae can find some relief in kawaii. Creating quasi-relationships with kawaii objects or characters becomes a kind of compensation for the alienation and social anxiety they feel. Kawaii allows them to be part of a group in which they know they will be accepted. Consider fandoms and shippers, for example, and how unitedly aggressive their members can be when defending their OTP!

(Of course, trying to find one’s identity and sense of belonging through objects is not unique to Japan. It happens in all capitalist societies – remember the flood of tweets around Christmas last year? “I didn’t get an iPhone! FML.” That’s where the similarities stop, though: a Nike logo, for instance, isn’t adored and personified the way Hello Kitty is in Japan.)

Also, Japan’s still largely patriarchal society may have come to expect women to be kawaii. In the male-dominated field of academia, for example, women are expected to defer to their male colleagues by acting submissively – and being submissive, of course, is part and parcel of being kawaii, and of being a burikko. An acquaintance of Miller, contemplating her own career progression, succinctly put it as “I have to learn to do burikko better to get ahead.”

Which Came First?

Speaking of Hello Kitty, these days the character licensing industry in Japan is very big business. As in, trillions of yen big business. Which isn’t surprising, really – there’s certainly a demand for kawaii characters, accessories, clothing, and so on.

But which came first? Did kawaii explode because there was demand for it? Or did kawaii, already ubiquitous, muscle its way into everyday life? Personally, I think it’s a vicious cycle of both. This is just my opinion, so take this one with a grain of salt.

The more kawaii things there are, the easier it is to find one to identify with, and ka-ching! Another plush toy or body pillow sold. Then, of course, a company like Sanrio sees that there’s a market for kawaii, and makes more, more, and even more kawaii things – and the cycle starts again.

Kawaii, Now and In the Future

Nowadays, kawaii is so deeply entrenched with Japan and Japanese culture that it’s near impossible to separate the two, although there are undercurrents of anti-kawaii and anti-burikko sentiments. Kawaii has become the normal state of affairs – I don’t think anyone consciously sticks it to The Man by writing with maru-ji or using baby talk anymore.

Besides, I don’t think kawaii is a bad thing. After all, it’s fun, and it’s funny, and well… cute! I can appreciate cute for cute’s sake, and hey – Japan just wouldn’t be the same without it.

Read more:

• Cuties in Japan, by Sharon Kinsella
• You are Doing Burikko!, by Laura Miller
• Cute Inc., by Mary Roach
• Graphic Japan, by Natalie Avella

Header image by Minh Tan

Hey, being a puppy is hard. He deserves that beer.

Shunsuke’s owner spreads this vile plague of cuteness to the world via the dog’s very own Twitter account. When a Japanese TV program aired detailing the details of this cute canine cretin, Shunsuke had a whopping 20,000 followers on Twitter (Maru has a measly 13,000). Shunsuke’s army has since grown to over 40,000 followers strong. Too bad Tofugu isn’t run by pomeranians.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz7UhUTDerk&feature=related']

I have to admit, some of these pictures are cute to the point of absolute ridiculousness. Little Shunsuke really does look just like a stuffed animal, especially when he’s shot in pictures with actual stuffed animals. He blends right in!

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6Y7tkf2R6E&feature=related']

Shunsuke is also proving to be a massive influence on consumerism in China. His popularity has been great for pet shop owners because now everyone wants their own little Shunsuke.

With Shunsuke’s popularity rocketing the sales of pomeranians in China, prices have increased from 700 yuan to over 1000 yuan. Yikes. (Actually not that yikes, 1 yuan is about 15 cents American, lol)

Shunsuke also has his very own official photo book and calendar.

P.S. Think Shunsuke makes Maru look like yesterday’s news? Like Tofugu on Facebook.

P.P.S. No! Maru Forever! Shunsuke drools! *cough* Did you know Tofugu has a Twitter?