Hello Kitty Dissed
IMPORTANT UPDATES:
The world’s most recognizable Japanese feline amine* is passed over for global ambassador in favor of Doraemon, some robotic magic cat I’ve never heard of, I dunno about you. News24:
Tokyo – A rotund, blue cartoon cat took office as an “anime ambassador” to promote Japanese culture around the world in a ceremony at the foreign ministry on Wednesday.
Doraemon, the hero of one of Japan’s most popular anime cartoon series, is a robotic cat with magic powers, who comes back from the future to help a hapless young primary school boy, Nobita.
“Doraemon, I hope you will travel around the world as an anime ambassador to show people what kind of place Japan is,” the ministry quoted Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura as saying at an inauguration ceremony attended by people dressed as the series’ main characters.
Hello Kitty must be pissed. Here’s Doraemon.
OK, now here’s Hello Kitty.
Which one do you think has a little dignity, is going to know which fork to use at a state dinner? It’s a pretty ridiculous situation. Don’t forget, there’s also a more rugged Hello Kitty for men. Though the slightly more robust side of Japan’s foreign cartoon policy is currently being handled by Prince Pickles.
*Synova in comments gets technical. Hello Kitty is not anime, “just marketing.” I’ll overlook the rank anti-marketism suggested by that remark and suggest that Hello Kitty may well be the better faux feline to represent Japan’s rank marketism. Synova nominates Hamtaro.
I grabbed that image off an Arabic site. Clearly Hamtaro has made inroads in the Islamic world, despite the somewhat muddled anthropomorphic image issues. As long as Hamtaro doesn’t get mistaken for Mohamtaro, he’ll be OK.
I wouldn’t put Hamtaro in charge of disaster relief, though.
Meanwhile, in other toon-related foreign policy issues.
Topics: Hello Kitty, Japan
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:07 pm Comments (7) on Wednesday, March 19, 2008
7 Responses to “Hello Kitty Dissed”
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March 19th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
I prefer Hello Kitty; she goes much better with semi-automatic rifles.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
And she’ll look good on any weapon!!!!!
Doraemon would look like a dork on the stock of any weapon.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
TRJS has already pointed out the discrepancy. Hello Kitty has her own designer line of weapons. True to pacifist tradition, Doraemon loses.
March 20th, 2008 at 1:47 am
Hello Kitty isn’t Anime though… really. She’s just marketing.
Never heard of the blue guy. Hamtaro would be a good choice for equal cuteness.
March 20th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Oh, great, now I have the hamster dance music stuck in my head again!
March 20th, 2008 at 10:31 am
[...] at Jules Crittenden’s, we find that Hello Kitty was dissed. And The Hamster Dance is now stuck in my [...]
March 20th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Dora the Explorer is the pre-school girls toy of choice today…there are plenty of 2 year old girls that have never heard of “Hello Kitty”.