Well it’s finally here: the last day of our biggest-ever pre-Christmas sale. If you want to pick up some awesome products from Japan for the Japan-focused people on your list this year, remember that the 12%-off-nearly-everything sale ends at midnight at the end of Cyber Monday, so get shopping now! You never know what’s going to become popular in Japan next. For the past few years the country has been experiencing a boom in “Yuru-chara,” which are cute (?) plush characters with people inside that promote interest in Japan’s various prefectures and towns. Yuru-charas are defined as characters who express a strong message of love for different regions of Japan, move in clumsy but lovable ways and take a fundamentally relaxed view of life. The boom got its start back in 1999, when Nikko Edo-mura, a sort of theme park that re-creates the old Edo Period, created a fairly horrifying samurai cat thing called Nyan-mage, and before anyone knew it, these regional characters were everywhere. Most are minor and blend in with the background, posing for photos at local cultural events but not really standing out. A few, however, become quite popular and get licensed for mainstream products, like the official character promoting the city of Kumamoto, Kumamon. Although J-List’s home prefecture of Gunma is famous for being the least interesting prefecture in Japan (it’s sort of become a meme at this point), our character Gunma-chan (the orange horse in the image) is quite popular, regularly ranking in third place nationally.
Cute “Yuru-chara” promote Japan’s various regions.
