The Downside of Cute Japan: When Mascots Fail

Cute Japan has long ago taken the world by storm.  Japanese girls dressed like dolls are kawaii.  Cosmetic surgery creates bigger eyes.  Hair is poofed up tied with big ribbons (if you're a girl).  Hello Kitty is now 30 years old?  Do people even know that?

Anime, Japanese manga (cartoons) has can also be seen, bought, and read in many corners of the world.  Except for the smut that is child pornography in manga form, I don't have a problem with this side of Japan.  You want cute?  It's here in many shapes, forms, and sizes.

On my mind of late is the subject of mascots.  There's a bit of a boom of these giant creatures.  Prefectures have their own mascots as do companies, agencies, government organizations.  For the most part these are seriously loved by the Japanese.  For the most part, these seriously confuse foreigners.

When I saw Alpha Male (my favorite Japanese man in Japan) awhile back I noticed something hanging from his cell phone.
"What is that?" I say, pointing to a red...dog?  Bear?  Except for the big bulb of black on its nose the rest of this thing is red.  Today on the subway I saw a giant doll of this red thing hanging off a violin case.  What is this?  Why do people have this thing?
"It's a mascot," Alpha Male says.
"Huh," I say.
"What?"  He's annoyed.
"Nothing," I say.  Then, "I guess I don't get it."

I used to interpret for cops who would visit Tokyo to visit their Japanese counterparts.  Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has a mascot.  Again, it can only be described as a thing.  I think it might actually be a mouse or a rat crossed with an alien but I'm not at all sure.  Pee-Po as the mascot is called, shows up on the business cards of all TMPD officers, detectives, and officials.  Pee-Po is on signs and brochures and billboards outside police stations.  Pee-Po has a family:  mommy rat, baby rat, grandma rat, brother and sister rat.  American cops I worked with mocked Pee-Po and Tokyo cops that had a rat for a mascot.  "Imagine NYPD officers having a cartoon pigeon on their cards," one cop said to me.  "They'd be the laughing stock of cops everywhere."  I just smiled.  Here again is cute Japan.  To each their own.  If Japanese cops need a mascot to make themselves more likeable then so be it.  Sort of.

I draw the line at Fukuppy.  Fukushima tried to offer up Fukuppy as their mascot in October, 2013.  Fukuppy has since disappeared having been made fun of online by those who saw the name as mock-worthy.  On this, I stand with the mockers.  Really?  No one checked?  Fukuppy?

Not having the answer on why these mascots are as popular as they are I go back to Hello Kitty.  These mascots are giant versions of Hello Kitty.  If Hello Kitty can survive and make her way around the world for thirty years then perhaps there's some wisdom in having ambiguous creatures represent a prefecture.  Or cops.  Then again, I think one needs to be Japanese to appreciate this side of cute Japan.  Too many foreigners have said to me after looking at these things, "I guess I don't get it."  Yours truly included.

Random musings on things.