My own creation - Haramaki Kitty! He is loosely based on the famous Sanrio character Hello Kitty and is actually supposed to be Hello Kitty's real father.
According to Hello Kitty's "official" biography, she's supposed to be a nice English kitten who lives in London. That's why her name is "Hello" Kitty. She was originally designed to promote the use of simple English. In her "official" biog, she has a nice, middle class English family. But, of course, there's nothing English about her.
There is nothing more Japanese than Japanese people's overriding desire to be bourgeois and European. This tendency, so apparent in Hello Kitty, actually proves her intense Japaneseness. For this reason I decided to make her father into a shitamachi (downtown), working-class, Edo-ko (the Japanese equivalent of a Cockney), with no pretentions to being European or middle-class, hence the haramaki (stomach warmer) and hachimaki (sweat band), and uncouth habits and manners.
According to Hello Kitty's "official" biography, she's supposed to be a nice English kitten who lives in London. That's why her name is "Hello" Kitty. She was originally designed to promote the use of simple English. In her "official" biog, she has a nice, middle class English family. But, of course, there's nothing English about her.
There is nothing more Japanese than Japanese people's overriding desire to be bourgeois and European. This tendency, so apparent in Hello Kitty, actually proves her intense Japaneseness. For this reason I decided to make her father into a shitamachi (downtown), working-class, Edo-ko (the Japanese equivalent of a Cockney), with no pretentions to being European or middle-class, hence the haramaki (stomach warmer) and hachimaki (sweat band), and uncouth habits and manners.
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