Gross National Cute

The power of cute compels you! Anyone who doubts the influence of the cute character in modern Japanese society need look no further than Tokyo's Shibaura Water Recyling Center, preferably from low earth orbit. Check out this satellite imagery of the government-owned facility: They've painted an enormous rendition of their mascot character atop one of their reactor tank reservoirs. Here's a link to the Google Maps interface queued up to the actual coordinates, which lets you zoom in and out and scroll around.

A lot of non-Japanese are really thrown for a loop by the juxtaposition of unabashedly cute imagery with otherwise straitlaced things like water-reclamation plants, but really, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Nearly every Japanese governmental agency sports its own cute mascot, as do the fire department, the metropolitan police, and even the individual branches of the military. Even the likes of prime ministers have been known to kick it with some cuddly homies (check out the Ministry of Justice's website, which sports a shot of former PM Koizumi posing with the official mascot characters for the concept of human rights. Who knew that human rights were so squeezably soft?)

Pro and armchair Japanologists have advanced all sorts of theories as to why the Japanese seem to willing to embrace what, at least to many Westerners, appears to be such an infantile approach to public relations. Some have proposed that the logographic nature of kanji characters somehow "primes the pump" for visual representations of ideas and concepts here. Others attribute the penchant for anthropomorphic character design to the animistic traditions of Japan's native religion of Shinto. Or is it due to the rise in popularity of anime and manga in the postwar era? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Forget the scholarly stuff for a second. The real reason you see this sort of thing in Japan is simple: because it's kinda cool to splash a cute character a hundred meters tall across the roof of your industrial facility. (I'm praying someone gets it in their head to paint those JSDF characters atop the Pentagon as a cross-cultural prank.)

Anyway, allow me take this opportunity to unabashedly shill Hiroko's and my upcoming book on this very topic. Hello, Please! Very Helpful Super Kawaii Characters From Japan is a discussion and photo collection of some of the more interesting creations we've encountered in our travels throughout Japan. As these official mascots and PR characters exist to convey information and promote concepts rather than as merchadise in and of themselves, we coined the term "working characters" to distinguish them from commercialized cousins such as Hello Kitty. In any event, Hello, Please! is being published by Chronicle Books. Watch for it to hit bookstores a bit later this year. And yes, it'll even have its own official mascot. Because, really, what book about anthropomorphic mascots would be complete without one?

(Thanks to Adamu of MutantFrog for posting about this amazingly lucky find in a random scan of Google Maps imagery!)

Comments

[gilles Poitras]

Ack!

Another cool book to buy. I hope you have good text descriptions to go with the images. Chronicle Books seems to think that pictures are sufficient content. Me I want to know who the hell came up with this, when and other little details I can mine for my own writing thereby citing the book and exposing more people to it.

[Adamu]

You're welcome. Just be sure to credit me if you put this in your book!

Would many Westerners really look at Japan's cutesy mascots and say "oh that's such infantile PR"? Maybe if they work in PR. I'm inclined to conclude that they would look at them and say "what the hell are these infantile Japanese thinking?!" Absent some special expertise, your average Joe is likely to first attribute cultural explanations to the odd bits of foreign cultures that he might come across. Personally, I think these image characters deserve a treatment that goes beyond surface reactions since there is more to them than being "kinda cool."

I agree with gilles: if you're writing a book on the topic, I'd be very interested to hear from the designers of some of these things. Why is this appropriate? How were they chosen to come up with this? Was there a contest among elementary school students maybe?

That might give you some clue as to the real factors behind the "earth wearing a manhole cover." The wasteful budgeting and reliance on big public works for employment in Japan I think is one factor driving these manga monstrosities, as Alex Kerr might call them.

Example: Japan Post recently unveiled a line of mutual fund products (toushi shintaku in Japanese), and what did they use for their mascot? An anthropomorphic cube. WTF does that have to do with mutual funds???? Do they focus group these things? Do people really respond to them?

And it's not just limited to the public sector. Another example: someone at the water authorities has a daughter who's an aspiring manga artist. That's how my local Rotary club in the Kobe area got its logo, anyway. Basically, these organizations have PR budgets, and they have to get spent *somewhere.*

I have to wonder, and if your book would shed some light on that (instead of just making light of it from that oh-so-condescending "Western perspective") I for one would be very interested in reading it.

Also, for the record, the US has a slew of insane mascots for its government agencies as well, except they tend to only show up on the "for kids" sections of their websites. I think it's basically for the same boring reason: the budget had to get spent. Look at the (supposedly strait-laced) NSA/CIA sites for starters, and if you Google around there are at least a few articles showcasing some of the more perplexing ones. Another question I have is: why are the wacky (and often unsightly) mascots so much more prevalent and out in the open in Japan while they have to be sought out in the US?

Good luck on the book!

[hillsy]

While US companies may use mascots, I think they're a little less "kiddified" than Japanese couterparts. One example is baseball (yakyu). I've heard confusion voiced from many people just becoming interested in Puro Yakyu as to the team's mascots. NPB teams have very "cutesy" mascots when compared to MLB. The mascots sure do help to sell team goods, it seems. That could be said about more companies, as well. The NOVA usagi for one. I've seen more figures, bags, cell phone dangles etc. with that mascot. SUICA was also pushing mascot goods. Maybe that's what it comes down to.

[Matt Alt]

Re: "infantile Japanese," I wonder. While there are plenty of look-at-the-wacky-Japanese-they're-not-like-us style books and websites out there, I suspect (perhaps "hope" is a better word) that educated people know to balance the country's appreciation of cute mascots against other cultural trends in manufacturing, electronics, fashion design, etc. That would let them pigeonhole this as what it is: simply one aspect of a broader culture.

But perhaps I'm simply being over-optimistic.

While it isn't an extended sociological treatise or deep investigative journalism -- it's largely photo-based and intended to be fun even for casual readers -- we really wanted to avoid the "orientalist" pitfall of smugly pointing and laughing at the subject matter with Hello, Please. Hiroko and I have a lot of affection for the cute mascots and characters that populate the islands of Japan, and do our best to put them into a solid (if basic) cultural context for readers so inclined to learn more.

The focus is on the overall visual culture rather than the specific design process -- that's a whole 'nother book! Having largely been designed on the fly (and occasionally even, as mentioned above, by amateurs) the origins of the vast majority of working characters are shrouded in mystery. I suspect there's a lot of "inertia" involved in the design process these days, as anthropomorphic characters have grown into a fundamental genre unto themselves in Japan. I would be extremely surprised if children were involved in the design process of "Mr. Earth" at all. I suppose what I'm trying to get at is that "cute" isn't necessarily "childish" in a Japanese context; it's more "playful."

[Mike]

Is it possible to get those coordinates or the location in english?

I'm still learning japanese and I wanted to check to see if that place was on Google Earth.

[Matt Alt]

Try cutting and pasting the recycling plant's address into your Google Earth search bar:

港区港南1-2-28

The facility itself is quite clear from 13 kilometers above the surface, but Mr. Earth doesn't start resolving until about three or four.

[Richard 23]

Just go to Google Earth and type in the coordinates. Then zoom in.

maps.google.com
35.634536,139.744699