4 ms·

They do it in Japan. Everything has a cute anime mascot.

by krapht 6y ago

lscharen 6y ago
Lest people forget the OS-tan trend of the early 2000's. https://www.ostan-collections.net/wiki/index.php/List_of_Canon_OS-tans https://www.ostan-collections.net/wiki/index.php/List_of_Can...
- astrange 6y ago
  A lot of those are unofficial, which raises the question of why Japan has so many very skilled artists* with so much free time when they work so much. * not so imaginative, but always consistent and on-model in ways Westerners don't feel any pressure to try for
m4rtink 6y ago
It's actually a pretty useful in practice! Say you need a safety warning tables for your railway station - pandas dangerously fussing with selfie sticks on a crowded platform are much more enjoyable and memorable than just some more generic stick figures doing the same. You can also encode culture into mascots - everyone probably knows the bear mascot Kumamon (yes, there are many bears in Kumamoto and they occasionally eat somebody) but take forever example Shimaneko, the mascot of the Shimano pprefecture. Neko means cat and indeed its a cat mascot - with a strange hat! And that hat is the roof of the ancient and famous Izumo shrine located in the Shimano prefecture. Or the even more obscure Kinosaki Kounori: https://mobile.twitter.com/jrw_fukuchiyama/status/1046927976493854720 https://mobile.twitter.com/jrw_fukuchiyama/status/1046927976... On the picture you can see a young female anime character in a summer kimono (yukata). This is the mascot of a limitted express train (!) that goes from Osaka and Kyoto to the famous onsen (hot spring) town of Kinosaki (hence the Kinosaki in the name). The the other name Kounori is from the name of the train, Kou no tori - oriental white stork. Which goes right back to the founding legend of Kinosaki about how they built the first bath after observing a stork using the natural hot spring to heal its wounds. And the last thing - the summer kimono/yukata. If you look closely she also has a ticket stamping tool and a railway company employee badge - that's because station employees really do wear yukata in the summer in Kinosaki instead of their usual uniforms! :) And the kimono pattern includes of course the oriental white stork but also - fireworks! And that's because of course in the summer there are regular fireworks shows in Kinosaki! :) Really some much culture and symbolism (not to mention hard work!) goes to japanese mascot characters!

They do it in Japan. Everything has a cute anime mascot.

by krapht 6y ago

They do it in Japan. Everything has a cute anime mascot.

Lest people forget the OS-tan trend of the early 2000's. https://www.ostan-collections.net/wiki/index.php/List_of_Canon_OS-tans https://www.ostan-collections.net/wiki/index.php/List_of_Can...

astrange 6y ago
A lot of those are unofficial, which raises the question of why Japan has so many very skilled artists* with so much free time when they work so much. * not so imaginative, but always consistent and on-model in ways Westerners don't feel any pressure to try for

m4rtink 6y ago

It's actually a pretty useful in practice! Say you need a safety warning tables for your railway station - pandas dangerously fussing with selfie sticks on a crowded platform are much more enjoyable and memorable than just some more generic stick figures doing the same. You can also encode culture into mascots - everyone probably knows the bear mascot Kumamon (yes, there are many bears in Kumamoto and they occasionally eat somebody) but take forever example Shimaneko, the mascot of the Shimano pprefecture. Neko means cat and indeed its a cat mascot - with a strange hat! And that hat is the roof of the ancient and famous Izumo shrine located in the Shimano prefecture. Or the even more obscure Kinosaki Kounori: https://mobile.twitter.com/jrw_fukuchiyama/status/1046927976493854720 https://mobile.twitter.com/jrw_fukuchiyama/status/1046927976... On the picture you can see a young female anime character in a summer kimono (yukata). This is the mascot of a limitted express train (!) that goes from Osaka and Kyoto to the famous onsen (hot spring) town of Kinosaki (hence the Kinosaki in the name). The the other name Kounori is from the name of the train, Kou no tori - oriental white stork. Which goes right back to the founding legend of Kinosaki about how they built the first bath after observing a stork using the natural hot spring to heal its wounds. And the last thing - the summer kimono/yukata. If you look closely she also has a ticket stamping tool and a railway company employee badge - that's because station employees really do wear yukata in the summer in Kinosaki instead of their usual uniforms! :) And the kimono pattern includes of course the oriental white stork but also - fireworks! And that's because of course in the summer there are regular fireworks shows in Kinosaki! :) Really some much culture and symbolism (not to mention hard work!) goes to japanese mascot characters!