Let's Book

This is the cover of Hiroko's and my upcoming book, Hello, Please! Very Helpful Super Kawaii Characters From Japan. Advance copies are due in just a few days, with the official release set for late summer. It's your handy-dandy guide to what we call "working characters" -- the cute little mascots that serve as visual punctuation of modern Japanese life. Unlike their commercial character cousins (think Hello Kitty), their raison d'etre isn't making money but rather enhancing communication. They tirelessly assist and inform from street signs, packaging, instruction manuals and all sorts of places where attention needs to be paid.

Hello, Please! is about more than just wacky photos of cute characters. It's an exploration of the sheer pervasiveness of "kawaii" and manga/anime inspired imagery in daily Japanese life. Working characters can be found in nearly every corner of Japan, every drug store and supermarket, every doctor's office, every police box, every military base, and even, occasionally, alongside the prime minister. And the Japanese penchant for giving a face to nearly any situation or idea, no matter how obscure, has resulted in some conceptual mash-ups that border on art. I'll be posting examples in the weeks leading up to the book's release, and you can read more about the basic concept here. In the meantime...

Meet the official mascot character of our book of mascot characters: Mr. Book!

Mr. Book was designed by our pal, manga artist Yutaka Kondo. If you're a fan of manga in translation, you may be familiar with his comic Gojin, a medieval superhero and kaiju epic released by Antarctic Press in the far-flung year of 1995. In the years since he's been working on all sorts of projects, including illustrations for Rikao Yanagita's bestselling Dream Science Guide series and Eiga Hi-Ho, and most recently, acting as a consultant on Madhouse's upcoming anime Oedo Rocket.

Each chapter of our book opens with a Kondo-designed splash page. Now: why's Mr. Book riding a vibrating catfish? Guess you'll have to pick up a copy of Hello, Please! to find out.