Won't Miss #453 - "yuru-kyara"

Rinkaru, the mascot of the Rinkai line.

There are copious blog posts by foreigners in Japan writing about the various mascots invented to lend color and personality to various aspects of Japanese society. These characters are called "yuyu-kyara" in Japan. The police, firehouses, shopping areas, and even various train stations have their own characters. In many cases, possibly most, these characters are contrived to find a way to merchandise or lure tourists. It has reached the point though where there are so many of them that you can't really remember which ones to identify with a particular area. Some areas even have two mascots. For instance, Sugamo has both a cartoon duck and an chibified version of Jizo, a Buddhist priest.

While I can understand the desire to give a service or area an identity with a mascot, the extent to which these characters populate the culture in Japan feels like it's too much. They blend into a sea of cutesy characters which forms an army so large it could easily defeat the cumulative bank of Disney characters in cartoon-land combat. I won't miss seeing a cute mascot for nearly everything everywhere I go.

Won't Miss #312 - Akagi Gari

Sometimes a mascot offers up such a disturbing image that I'm actually turned off of the company's products. Enter Akagi's "Gari" mascot. The characters huge maw reminds me of a slavering pervert than a kid who wants a tasty ice treat. You can't tell so well from this picture of a tanabata festival decoration, but here's a picture I pinched from Akagi's site:

He reminds me a bit of a Mad Magazine caricature. My friend Shawn said he appears to have an impressive crotch plate.

Every time I'm perusing the freezer case, seeing Gari's gaping mouth and manic eyes, I have to look away, and I won't miss that.

Will Miss #184 - the Sato Elephant

Two Japanese corporate icons greeted me outside of establishments since I first arrived in Japan. One was the Fujiya girl, who vanished when the Fujiya sweets shop went away about a decade ago, and the other is the Sato elephant. Like Colonel Saunders, he gets dressed differently based on the seasons and holidays. Unlike the Colonel, he's a very Japanese icon. There is something about the expression on the little orange elephant that reminds me of old-fashioned animation (think Sazae-san, not Sailor Moon). Frankly, it reminds me of a happy and earnest child.

I'll miss seeing this friendly little elephant statue, which sits in front of no less than 3 shops in my neighborhood.

Won't Miss #134 - Suginomori

It seems that nearly everything in Japan has to have a mascot. In many cases, they are crudely drawn or poorly designed. You get the feeling that some of them were just created by someone in the office who could doodle a bit rather than by a professional artist. The ward I live in has some peculiar worm-like creature called "Suginomori". It's all over the place in my neighborhood - on signs, on various bits of junk at festivals, and recently I've even seen cookies sold with its image. After all, who doesn't want to eat a cookie with a picture of a weird worm thing on it? What is more irksome is knowing my city taxes are funding the proliferation of this crude mascot.

I won't miss seeing this ugly city mascot on a nearly daily basis.