It's not just in Japan, but the mascots are spread out in different areas of the world. Companies use mascots, football/soccer teams have mascots and even games have their mascots. Japan, on the other hand, uses mascots in almost 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 have to analyze why large companies and organizations often use mascots. The main focus of mascots is to market a certain thing, place or product. But the real intention of the mascots is something bigger, to give an identity and personality to the company. People feel more comfortable talking, associating and buying from other people, companies with fancy names need something to represent and show personality to them, so they use mascots.
We already know that Japan is influenced by the kawaii culture, but if we stop to think about it, the large number of pets is large due to the shyness of the Japanese, their difficulty in socializing and several other cultural factors.
To understand this better we need to analyze the Japanese mascots. The most common term for Japanese mascots is yuru-kyara (or yuru-chara). Various things are created about these mascots, music, games, presentations, TV shows, etc.
The most popular and cute japanese mascots
At the beginning of the article we have the images of some mascots. First fukka-chan which is a cross of a deer and rabbit that represents the city of Fukaya. the second is the Kaparu a version of Shiki City's kappa yokai. And the third is Ebinya a cheerful mascot from the town of Ebina, with her shrimp hat (ebi) and strawberry body.
The most famous mascot is the Kumamon representing the city of Kumamoto, when they opened the bullet train. Another cute mascot is the Chihana-chan which represents the city of Chiba and its beautiful flowers.
Then we have the cute Yachinyan, a kitten bred to attract tourists to Yonbancho Square shopping street and square, located in Hikone, Shiga. Followed by the green bear called Arukuma. It was created with several hats to represent different Nagano spices, each hat represents one thing, such as apples, chestnuts, persimmons, mushrooms, lettuce, soba, and wine.
Tagatan is a mole representing the mining and construction industries of the city of Tagawa. Sanomaru is a cute samurai created to promote the city of Sano, which is close to Tokyo. He has a bowl-shaped hat and some accessories that represent the city's specialties like sano-ramen noodles.
for me the Yachinyan is the cutest mascot...
Musubimaru was designed to represent Miyagi's rice farms. He has samurai armor based on Date Masamune's and an onigiri rice ball head. Gunma-chan, as the name suggests it has been Gunma's mascot since 1983, but its current designer was made in 2008. It has a horse face representing that Gunma was the first region to have horse breeding. Finally we have Domo-kun the famous official mascot of the NHK TV station.
These are some popular pets. There are thousands of other pets in Japan, some even more popular than the ones mentioned in this article. If you remember any, you can comment on them in the comments, we would be happy to help.
