Miscellaneous Yuru Kyara
Japan is the land of the mascot (as noted in passing in the first ferrebeekeeper post about mascots). Not only do sports teams and companies and public safety campaigns all have mascots, in recent year the country has been gripped by a mania for Yuru-kyara (AKA yuru characters or “gentle characters”) little animated figures which represent every single city, municipality, prefecture, and village in Japan. The yuru characters are meant to represent some aspect of the culture of the place which they hail from: so a district famous for manufacturing aviation equipment might have a cute little jet mascot, whereas a farming village might be represented by a happy turnip. Some of the meanings are rather obscure (like the little berry boy which represents the Japan Self Defense Force Yamanashi Provincial Cooperation Office).
Maybe the Japan Self Defense Force Yamanashi Provincial Cooperation Office just really like berries…
The most famous yuru-kyara become hugely popular and can be quite lucrative—for example Kumamoto, the beloved yuru-kyara of Kumamon brought in hundreds of millions of yen for the prefecture (and sold huge piles of Kumamoto figures and merchandise). Many of the others labor in obscurity (or are replaced by more likable mascots). Sometimes two figures will be in conflict: Funabashi City is unofficially represented by Funassyi a frolicsome “pear fairy” however the official Funabashi City yuru-kyara is Funaemon, who looks like an anxious and fussy bureaucrat.
Funassyi, the pear spirit
Funaemon hopes you have filled out your forms correctly
You can check out all sorts of amazing Yuru-kyara on this website (thanks to my roommate Steven Sho Sugita-Becraft for the link!), but, unless you read Japanese, you might be hard pressed to figure out who they are and what they represent. I wonder if all the money-grubbing attention-hungry municipalities of America will ever adapt a similar scheme of crazy mascots (or are we just stuck with MacGruff and Mr. Yuck)?
I guess they could come over on their pirate ship?
ferrebeekeeper 
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August 28, 2013 at 11:38 AM
AManCalledDada
Da-da’s favorite is Domo, the NHK (TV) monster. “Dōmo, konnichiwa!” We must have eight Domos in the house, as well as several Totoros. It’s a natural syncretic extension of the aged pantheon of village/tribal spirits, of which Da-da’s house has many. They were quite active last night, in fact. (Yes, Da-da’s being serious.)
August 28, 2013 at 12:05 PM
Wayne
I looked up Domo and greatly enjoyed reading his elaborate backstory (and finding out about his extensive cast of friends and neighbors). Thanks for the suggestion!