About

I’m Chris Carlier, a British writer/illustrator in Tokyo, and on this blog I share photos and information about Japanese mascot characters (“yuru-chara”).

Read more about me in these articles: CNN, Vice, The AV Club, Indy100, GQ, BBC, 99u, The New York Times, listen to me on 99%Invisible and ABC (Australian radio), or watch me being interviewed live on CNN.

My Twitter was one of The AV Club’s Top 100 things on the internet in the 2010s and one of The Guardian’s 50 Cheeriest Social Media Accounts.

Here’s an article I wrote about Japanese mascots for Bloomberg: The Strange, Enduring Charm of Japan’s Civic Mascots