It’s not just in Japan, but mascots are spread across various areas of the world. Companies use mascots, football teams have mascots, and even games have their mascots. Japan, on the other hand, uses mascots in practically any situation. It is common to use mascots that represent places, cities, regions, TV stations, events, organizations, airports, anime, tourist attractions, government, and even on street signs.
Have you ever wondered why there are so many mascots? First, we need to analyze why large companies and organizations tend to use mascots. The main focus of mascots is to market a certain thing, place, or product. However, the true intention of mascots is something greater: to give an identity and personality to the company. People feel more comfortable talking, associating, and buying from other people; companies with fantasy names need something to represent and show personality for them, which is why they use mascots.
We already know that Japan is influenced by kawaii culture, but if we stop to think, the large number of mascots is due to the shyness of the Japanese, their difficulty in socializing, and various other cultural factors.
To better understand this, we need to analyze Japanese mascots. The most common term to refer to Japanese mascots is yuru-kyara (or yuru-chara). Various things are created around these mascots, such as songs, games, performances, TV shows, etc.
The most popular and cute Japanese mascots
At the beginning of the article, we have images of some mascots. First, fukka-chan, which is a cross between a deer and a rabbit that represents the city of Fukaya. The second is Kaparu, a version of the kappa yokai from the city of Shiki. And the third is Ebinya, a cheerful mascot from the city of Ebina, with its shrimp (ebi) hat and strawberry body.
The most famous mascot is Kumamon, which represents the city of Kumamoto, when they opened the bullet train. Another cute mascot is Chihana-chan, which represents the city of Chiba and its beautiful flowers.
Next, we have the cute Yachinyan, a kitten created to attract tourists to the shopping street and Yonbancho Square, located in Hikone, Shiga. Followed by the green bear called Arukuma. It was created with various hats to represent different specialties of Nagano, each hat represents something, such as apples, chestnuts, persimmons, mushrooms, lettuce, soba, and wine.
Tagatan is a mole that represents the mining and construction industries of the city of Tagawa. Sanomaru is a cute samurai created to promote the city of Sano, which is near Tokyo. He has a bowl-shaped hat and some accessories that represent the city’s specialties, such as sano-ramen noodles.
For me, Yachinyan is the cutest mascot…
Musubimaru was designed to represent the rice farms of Miyagi. He has a samurai armor based on that of Date Masamune and a rice ball onigiri head. Gunma-chan, as the name suggests, is the mascot of Gunma since 1983, but its current design was made in 2008. He has a horse face representing that Gunma was the first region to have horse breeding. Lastly, we have Domo-kun, the famous official mascot of the NHK TV station.
These are some popular mascots. There are thousands of other mascots in Japan, some even much more popular than those mentioned in this article. If you remember any, you can comment about it in the comments; we would be happy with your help.
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