{"id":52,"date":"2016-11-21T15:56:23","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T15:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomascots.com\/?p=52"},"modified":"2016-12-11T10:08:27","modified_gmt":"2016-12-11T10:08:27","slug":"world-character-summit-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mondomascots.com\/index.php\/2016\/11\/21\/world-character-summit-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"World Character Summit 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nOn Sunday I went to the World Character Summit in Hanyu City, Saitama. This is like a Glastonbury Festival for Japanese mascots, with over three hundred of them standing around in a muddy field to promote whatever city, company, or product they represent. The characters perform on stages, and meet and greet their fans. I got a ton of pictures of the various yuru-chara I met, and I’ll be posting them throughout the week.<\/p>\n

Sanomaru<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\nSanomaru, the official mascot of Sano City<\/a> in Tochigi, is always a pleasure to spot. Winner of the Yuru-chara Grand Prix in 2013, Sanomaru is an adorable pup with a bowl of Sano ramen on its head. Whoever’s inside Sanomaru deserves credit for making him bounce around exuberantly and twitch his nose.<\/p>\n

Kyuichiro<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Kyuichiro is a unique creation, named after the frequency of the radio station he’s the mascot for, Nippon Cultural Broadcasting<\/a>. He has speakers for ears and his eyes and nose are in the shape of the frequency: 91.6.<\/p>\n

Muuma<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Muuma, the dream horse, is the mascot of Hanno City<\/a>, in Saitama. I like that funky green hairstyle.<\/p>\n

Tsutiy<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Tsutiy is an earth sprite, and the mascot for a Yamanashi-based agricultural firm called Tsutibokori<\/a> (cloud of dust). According to his business card (yes, earth sprites carry business cards), Tsutiy is 831 years old and his motto is, “Do not fear mistakes. There are none.”<\/p>\n

Utochan<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Hailing from Fukushima’s Yanaizu<\/a> town (famed for a “naked festival” held there each winter), Utochan is a combination of the second and third signs of the Chinese zodiac, the ox and the tiger. Presumably his life is a constant fight against the cannibalistic urge to eat himself.<\/p>\n

Kumamon<\/strong><\/p>\n

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And last but not least for today’s posting, Kumamon took to the stage for a few minutes of clowning and dancing. The famed black bear from Kumamoto wowed the crowd with a spirited performance. A middle-aged man beside me was moved to unironic tears.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sunday I went to the World Character Summit in Hanyu City, Saitama. This is like a Glastonbury Festival for Japanese mascots, with over three hundred of them standing around in a muddy field to promote whatever city, company, or product they represent. The characters perform on stages, and meet and greet their fans. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[4,5],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan","category-mascots","tag-japan","tag-mascots"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mondomascots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mondomascots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mondomascots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mondomascots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mondomascots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/mondomascots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193,"href":"https:\/\/mondomascots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mondomascots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mondomascots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mondomascots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}