Last month I attended Japan’s annual “World Character Summit”, held each November in Hanyu City, Saitama, on the outskirts of Tokyo. The world’s largest outdoor gathering of costumed characters, more than 300 were present, despite the terrible weather. Rain was bucketing down for most of the weekend, and the place was so muddy that it resembled the Glastonbury Festival. Mascots wore plastic bags on their feet to keep the mud off. I arrived halfway through the second day, just when the rain was stopping, and I managed to see a few mascots in customized raincoats, and even took some pictures with a rainbow in the background.
Shikisshi, the portrait-painting portrait painting from Fukuoka, paints a portrait of Naruma, the mascot of Kochi City .Spanky, the unemployed alien dog guitarist from Osaki, Tokyo, yanks the tongue of Yokkaichi City’s rotund yokai boy mascot, Konyudo-kun. Mito-chan (of Mito City) and Coroton the pig (from Maebashi City) pose together.Tenny & Teo & T.T are the llama mascots for the Japanese website for the mothers of young children, Teniteo.Kapal, the bass-playing, cucumber-obsessed kappa mascot of Shiki City.Komikyan, Dark Mikyan, and Mikyan, the dogs/oranges from Ehime, JapanShimanekko, the shrine-headed cat of Shimane Prefecture, meets Mozuyan, the shrike mascot of Osaka.Gumamon, the mascot of the sunny, tropical island of Guam, visits muddy Hanyu.Karawan-kun, the mascot of Karatsu City, meets a fellow dog.Hanipon, the haniwa (ancient clay statue) from Honjo City, meets Gis-kun, the black sheep from Hokkaido.Jin-kun, the lamb mascot from Sapporo, in a raincoat under a rainbowBravo the bear, from Taipei City, meets the Bizbear brothers (mascots for the costume makers, Kigurumi.biz)
