I can't quite recall the first time I came across these beings, but I remember seeing flashes of these "Mickey Mouse failures on TV when I first came to Japan, their unbalanced figures waddling about, their bodies so large that they can just about wiggle their hand to and fro in a pathetic wave, attempting to promote their prefecture.
Because that's what they are. "Prefectural Mascots", which are characters that are created in an attempt to increase tourist crowds in their homelands.
My first impressions of them were not exactly impressive. First, it made me smile that everything in Japan has to be "kawaii" (they have characters for everything, from health insurance companies to your local petrol station). Secondly, they appeared to me as cheap, lamer versions of our well-known folk at the land of Mr. Walt, as mentioned above. Most of them weren't particularly that cute anyway for Japanese standards, and though kids would squeal with joy and mums would snap away at them on their keitais, they simply stood there doing...sod all, really.
Except for Kumamon.
He is something quite, quite different.
The name "Kumamon" popped up on the News to me about 2 years ago, heralding that he had apparently won first place for the 'Yuru-chara Grand Prix 2011' (The Best Prefectural Mascot contest). I noticed he was a big, black bear. That was all at the time.
Since then, due to his popularity I had seen keyrings, towels, images etc dotted around shops in Hokkaido, and I noted that he was doing well in promoting his prefecture Kumamoto. Still, though I thought he was cute compared to the majority of Yuru-charas, I didn't see what was so special.
Moo was the one who lit my spark of interest.
She had caught a television show he had appeared on, and had fallen in love. We had got together for New Years (family time in Japan) at my grandma's house, and she spent most of the time, when we weren't sitting around the table engorging ourselves in the endless comings of food, sat in front of the computer, laughing at clips of this creature on Youtube.
Deciding to know what all the fuss was about, I sat with her and watched the clips, and I immediately understood the liking of him - he was not like his hopeless, waddling peers, he was dancing, leaping, acting surprised, moving around and had, of all anything, character and humour. He was not a person in a costume. He was Kumamon.
Still, it was when I found his blog and Twitter account that I really began to get addicted. Because yes, he updates it daily (though his staff updates his Blog, as they introduce themselves at the beginning and inform us ofhis eventful day). The pictures and tweets in his account were adorable and hilarious, and it gave me something to smile about every day. If things were going bad at work, I flip open my phone, log into Twitter, then grin to myself at pictures of him posing in a tomato field or throwing snowballs with kids.
So when I heard that Kumamon, who was touring Japan to visit areas he had yet to visit, was coming to Hokkaido, and coming to a small town near where I live I jumped on the idea - I had to meet him. I had to thank him for the joy he had been giving me in the past few months (I was still rather depressed about work and whatnot at the time).
I think I was probably the only single, not-with-child grown up there aside from one man with a fancy camera and a lady in her early 30s with a Kumamon towel. The rest were all children with their mothers. I swallowed my pride, and, without stepping on the toes of the toddlers and making sure they had formed a row in front of me, shuffled a little closer to the stage. And waited.
This is what I saw.
As you can hear from my ear piercing screeching I was highly excited. And as you can see from my ugly grin in the pictures I was even happier to meet him "in person". It was odd - he had become a star in my mind, not real, only existing in TV, Youtube and online, therefore meeting him face to face suddenly had my nerves flowing (the long line to see him as we lined up one at a time didn't help this). I was actually half shaking when I got up on stage to see him.
After the photos, the hugs, the squeals of excitement and getting slightly harassed by him (he grabbed me in a hug and wrapped one of his legs round me), I stumbled off stage in a daze, only to be approached by a huge camera.
And this was the result (watch from around 3:10).
I don't know whether I should feel proud or ashamed. I hate how I look as I'm no eyes and all teeth, I speak at excited-rocket-speed and laugh like a dork, but that is me, I suppose.
Plus, when I posted about my exciting moment on Twitter and tagged Kumamon, he replied, and as they had taken the present I had given him as a Valentines Day gift and had asked for my address, I was sent a "thank you" present back for White Day (more on Japanese Valentines Day customs here).
Many of you may be laughing at me as I am continually fed by this clever marketing scheme as I hope to make plans on visiting Kumamoto where one can enjoy a special Kumamon taxi ride, but I'm quite content - he continually gives me something bright and happy in my life when things don't always go to plan.
End result: Moo and I e-mail each other in "Kumamon language".
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