Destroy All Japanese Mascots - But I Wouldn't Kick Her Out of My Futon for Eating French Fries

Japan loves cute shit. It's everywhere here. I can't stand it. I think it might have been Hello Kitty who really broke this cute shit out into the open... (But that's just my personal opinion and obsessive dislike and life-long vendetta against everything and all things Hello Kitty...) 

This shitty mascot crap just drives a man to drinking...

Of course everyone has heard by now about how Fukushima Industries made their new mascot and actually made a great one. It's named "Fukuppy." Seriously. You can't make this stuff up... Er, I mean, you can't make this stuff, "uppy."

"I'm Fukuppy. Nice to meet you. I think I'm kind with a strong sense of justice but people say I'm a little bit scatterbrained." The company also says the name comes from Fukushima Industries and Happy. 

Fukushima + Happy = Fukuppy! Perfect!

I hate the character. Love the name, though... It's a perfect mix of tortured Japanese use of English and a stupid character with a shit-eating grin... Like they all have.

Fukuppy, indeed.

Like I said, Japan has always had these stupid-assed cute characters. This country drowns in cute. Here's some photos so that you guys get the idea of what kind of dumb crap passes as promotion in this country... As you can see, they all have a similar trait: weird-assed looking and supposedly cute as hell (as if some kid would find Fukuppy cute! Yeah, about as cute as drinking a canister full of soft drink laced with cesium 124 and cyanide....) 

Who is this clown? I don't know. What difference does it make? A mascot for something or another...I think it's supposed to be a baby dear... Maybe a fishing company that clubs baby seals to death... Or maybe a Bio-tech company that performs bizarre animal reconstruction experiments like this on this poor GMO-fed rabbit-dear cross breed who has no real mother.

I think this one must be the mascot for some company that's into produce, like selling tangerines or something like that. I figure it's a dumb dog that likes oranges... Go figure...

Let me guess... The sun, the clouds, music... A hydro-electric power company that dumps particularly malignant cancerous industrial waste into the rivers and drinking water!... Having a cute mascot makes that all OK!

I know this one. It's the mascot for the police. This makes it cute when the fucking police hide behind trees and give you traffic tickets because you didn't come to a COMPLETE STOP at that stop sign even though there wasn't another car or pedestrian around for miles! Assholes!... I know that if you or I ran around without any pants on they'd throw our asses in jail... A cop mascot running around bare-assed naked?... Cute! 

Move along, nothing to see here, folks....

Oh, how cute! Some part-timer in a monkey suit is acting like they are happy because some idiots actually spent money on a concrete statue of themselves... Probably the ONLY tourist who'd want their photo taken along that eye-sore statue. FAIL!

Woah! Wow! I love this mascot! I wouldn't kick her out of my futon for eating beef in a sesame bun! For some reason, I think I just got a Big Mac!

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....Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah... Dumb Japanese mascots...

The other day, the clowns who run the local government decided they'd waste tax money on making our own local mascot to stop people from speeding around on the neighborhood streets. Einsteins actually thought they'd get more promotion for this campaign by asking the locals in my neighborhood for submissions to the contest. Only people who live in the immediate two neighborhoods got to participate in this contest. 

Well, I got a submission form in my mailbox too. At first, it irritated me. But then my wife talked me into making a submission. She told me that they said they'd pick the 3 best submissions then have a contest at the local department store and the visitors could all vote for their favorite mascot... She mentioned that, since I have a radio show, with a bunch of twisted fans who like to listen to punk rock and loud music in the mornings, that if I got into the final three, I could say it on the radio and get lots of fans to come down and stuff the ballot boxes...

My devil horns started to appear out of the sides of my head...

So here is my submission to stop people from speeding down the local neighborhood streets. Her name is "Lorrie" (as in the British vernacular for "truck")... Lorrie had the misfortune of walking down one of the neighborhood streets when some asshole smoking Hi-Lite cigarettes and a Kamikaze towel wrapped around his forehead - who thinks a school zone is actually a freeway entrance - ran over poor Lorrie in a two-ton truck and squished her like a grape.

Lorrie is cuddly brown with X's for eyes and a cute bunch of tire tracks along her back. Her cute red tongue sticking out could be turned into a key chain or something (always gotta think about merchandising, right?)

Seriously, I did submit this to the contest organizers... Jerks, they didn't even have the courtesy to send me a "thank you" note.

I think that Lorrie more clearly represents the dangers of driving stupid than some cute assed mascot like Fukuppy (But Fukuppy's name is clearly a winner!)

Of course, those assholes running the contest won't choose dear Lorrie... I guess black humor doesn't get it here in Japan.... But, really, if you saw a sign with my mascot on it, you'd know EXACTLY what that meant, right?

I figure that, by some act of god, if I do win, Lorrie can get better and we'll put that cute McDonald's girl inside the mascot suit... The tire tracks along her back will be probably most indicative of the life of the girl inside: laid all over the country as she's run over.

Ah, but the contest organizers will fuck it up and pick some dumb-assed character like that naked flasher police mascot pervert.   

I need a drink... 

Hello Kitty Ticket Scalper Arrested! Anal Retentive Police Completely Out of Hand

Here we go again. Just after I complained about the Japanese police for busting a bar in Roppongi for allowing, of all things, dancing after midnight, now the cops have gone off and have arrested a guy for selling tickets to Sanrio Puroland (Hello Kitty Fun Park). 


This just pisses me off to no end that the cops waste our tax money with idiocy like this. Don't they have any real criminals to chase?


Once again, the Super-publication of truth, justice and the Japanese way, the Tokyo Reporter has the story:

Yamaguchi-gumi gangster arrested for scalping Hello Kitty fun park tickets

TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police arrested Kao Iwata, a member of the Yamaguchi-gumi criminal organization, for attempting to resell complimentary tickets to the Sanrio Puroland theme park in Tokyo’s Tama City, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Dec. 6).

Here we go again with the "Yakuza crackdown on ticket sellers." And, once agin, my complaints of "Don't we have other, more important problems to deal with?"

At approximately 11:10 a.m. on Sunday, an undercover officer from the TMD heard the 46-year-old suspect soliciting customers for tickets to enter the park, which offers attractions and rides featuring popular characters from the Sanrio brand, such as Hello Kitty.

Oh! He went "Undercover"!? Wow! (cue: Mission Impossible music) 

Iwata was attempting to sell individual tickets for 2,500 yen each. He was arrested for violating anti-nuisance ordinances.

What nuisance? If it's a family of three, he tried to save them about $60! I would have bought them!

According to the Community Safety Department of the TMD, Iwata had 12 complimentary tickets in his possession. “I received the tickets from an acquaintance,” the suspect is quoted by police. “I have no income, and I thought this would be a way to support myself.”

How in the world does selling tickets to Hello Kitty World involve "Community Safety?" The guy didn't have a job. He had no income. Hell, for all we know he has a kid... You do what you have to do, right?

Here's the story on the Japanese evening news no less!

I've stated it before that the police are obstructing business. Jeez! Confirmed by  the news story this desperado had a grand total of 12 tickets that he was trying to pedal off for ¥2,500 each (about $32 each). 12 tickets x $32.00 comes to a whopping grand total of $384. 

Sanrio Puroland entry tickets sell for ¥4,400 each (about $56 each)... Hell, the guy hasn't a job and he's out to try to make a buck. So what? 

I'm sure the good folks at Sanrio Puroland don't like it, but I really wonder if this is worth it to us all to have to pay taxes and arrest this guy for doing what he has to do to make some cash so he can live and eat.

I wonder how much money it cost us to arrest him?

Of course, as usual, people will blast me and say that the Yakuza have to be cracked down on because of "Human Trafficking." I say, "Bullshit!" When we have a story about the police actually arresting Yaks for human trafficking, then I might not complain. But this after-hours dancing and scalping tickets as well as prostitution busts are nothing more than a waste of tax dollars.

Aressting people for victimless crimes is BS.

I say death penalty!


NOTE: Anecdotal evidence. My wife tells me that the scalper was selling free entry tickets. These tickets are passed out in huge volumes to shareholders of Sario stock at shareholder's meetings. According to her, the vast majority of people entering Sanrio Puroland on weekends enter with free tickets. Many of the people visiting on weekends get in with free tickets from the shareholders and the other huge block of people who are admitted for free get their tickets from renewing newspaper subscriptions. My wife claims that "there isn't a family in our neighborhood who hasn't gone to Sanrio Puroland for free, except us." She, nor I, have any intention of going there for free or not. If you consider that most people get in for free and this guy was trying to sell entry tickets for ¥2,500 maybe that explains why he doesn't have a job.

The Tokyo Reporter is, in my opinion, one of the best English language publications in Japan as they translate into English stories that appear in the standard Japanese weeklies. With Tokyo Reporter, you get the news that the Japanese people get and not some twisted (and often confused) foreign outlook.