Here’s an absolutely adorable waste of your time for this Monday. As you are no doubt aware, Japan is rife with mascot characters, many of whom are big and cuddly. This is generally a good thing, but can prove a problem when these characters attempt …Read more »
If you’re a fan of cute Japanese stuff, you’ve no doubt encountered Rilakkuma, that bear who loves relaxing. Now Rilakkuma is getting a short Netflix series that’s set to premiere in 2018. The Rilakkuma series, which will celebrate the character’s 15th anniversary, will be made …Read more »
Twitter is a social media service so perfect for Japan, it seems almost like it was created for the country. Take its 140-character limit: while in English it can feel, well, limiting, the compact nature of Japanese means users can fit a ton of content …Read more »
Ah, end-of-year lists. Many, they are. Our favorite pollmasters Charapedia have gotten in on the end-of-year game by asking their readers: who were the best characters of 2015? The rules were pretty simple: the characters didn’t have to be new, they simply had to appear …Read more »
Lists of stuff – can you even remember what the internet was like before them? The latest list out from Goo, a Japanese site that asks its readers to rank all kinds of stuff, has busted out the moe question of moe questions – which …Read more »
Not too long ago we reported about the Japanese phenomenon that is the yuru-kyara, mascots that represent a town, municipality, prefecture… you name it, there’s a fuzzy, usually entirely unprofitable character to represent it. One exception might be Funassyi, the extremely popular character representing Funabashi …Read more »
Japan has a mascot problem. Sure, the country’s sported adorable characters for everything from the police to construction sites for, well, centuries, some would argue, but the latest trend is local governments creating mascots to represent their town. Called yuru-kyara, these mascots are supposed to …Read more »
Matt Schley
