Hello Kitty

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Sanrio store mainly focused on Hello Kitty products

Hello Kitty ( Japanese ハ ロ ー キ テ ィ , Harō Kiti , full name: Kitty White ) is a fictional character from the Japanese company Sanrio in the form of a cat. In German, the English expression Hello Kitty means " Hello Kitty ".

The character Hello Kitty is the stylized representation of a small white cat, of which often only the head is shown. She wears different colored ribbons, flowers or the like on her left ear and has no mouth. The numerous products of the figure, which is protected as a trademark, are sold under license and are exemplary of the Japanese kawaii culture.

The design of the figure, designed in 1974, was based on the Japanese stubby-tailed cat, which is considered a lucky charm .

Characters

Hello Kitty

According to the official character description, Hello Kitty was born on November 1st in a suburb of London, her real name is Kitty White . Her size is five gold apples and her weight is three gold apples. She can bake delicious cookies and has a heart of gold. She likes homemade apple pie best. Kitty loves to collect cute and small things, and her favorite subjects at school are English, music, and art.

Kitty lives in London with her parents Mary and George and her twin sister Mimmy.

More figures

Charmmy Kitty
Charmmy Kitty ( チ ャ ー ミ ー キ テ ィ , Chāmī Kiti ) is Hello Kitty's Persian cat that Hello Kitty got from her father George and her boyfriend Daniel for her birthday. Because no one is sure when Charmmy's birthday will be, Kitty and her father decided to put it on the day before Kitty's birthday, October 31st.
Charmmy Kitty is a white Persian cat and made her debut in 2004. She is well behaved and quiet. She does what she is told, but is sometimes a little too posh. Charmmy loves Kitty's belongings, especially the glittery pieces. Kitty gave her the pink ribbon that Charmmy wears on her left ear. Her identification mark is a necklace with the key to Kitty's jewelry box. It appears that she has a little sister named Honey ( ハ ニ ー , Hanī ).
Honey is pink, has two bows on her ears and her signature is a pink heart on her right paw. Honey is a little shorter than Charmmy, and her fur seems a little more unkempt than her big sister's.
Sugar
Sugar ( シ ュ ガ ー , Shugā ) is another character from the Hello Kitty series. He first appeared in 2004 with Charmmy Kitty.
Sugar is Hello Kitty's Djungarian hamster that Hello Kitty got from her father George and her boyfriend Daniel for her 30th birthday. He is Charmmy Kitty's playmate. Sugar is a hamster that got its name because its fur is white as sugar. His birthday is May 1st.
He can always be found with Charmmy Kitty. Sugar has four hamster friends. The first friend is a white hamster girl named Tiramisu ( テ ィ ラ ミ ス , Tiramisu ). She wears a pink bow on her head. The second friend is a caramel-colored hamster boy. It has two lighter spots over the eyes. The third friend is a vanilla-colored hamster boy. He wears black sunglasses on his head. The fourth friend is a black hamster girl. She wears a pink flower on her left ear.

history

In 1962, Shintaro Tsuji , founder of the Yamanashi Silk Center company (from 1973: Sanrio ), began selling sandals with a small flower painted on them. He found that the decorated sandals sold better than the bare ones and expanded the business to include slippers, wallets, and other products, this time with strawberry patterns. After failures with cherry patterns and in search of more original ideas, he had well-known artists such as Ado Mizumori and Takashi Yanase design figures, which he then used to decorate coffee cups, plates and other dishes. In addition, Tsuji secured the necessary rights to sell Barbie dolls , Hallmark greeting cards and, as one of three companies in Japan, products with Snoopy . Dissatisfied with the situation of having to acquire licenses from other companies or having to pay fees to artists, he set up his own design department for his company.

Research found that dogs, cats and bears are the most popular animals in Japan. Because popular characters already existed with the dog Snoopy and the bear Winnie the Pooh , and because Sanrio already had a bear and a dog in his range, company boss Tsuji commissioned his designers to create a cat figure.

Yūko Shimizu (2010)

Hello Kitty was designed by Yūko Shimizu in 1974 and added to the collection of Sanrio's characters. Shimizu, a big fan of the cats in Alice Behind the Looking Glass and Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll , experimented with her designs, first turning the cat on its side to reveal its profile, then back to the front. After some time of experimentation, Hello Kitty was ready: a white head twice the size of the body, no mouth, yellow nose, six whiskers, two dots as eyes that stare at the viewer head-on, plus blue overalls and a slightly crooked red one Bows on the head. As a reason for the missing mouth, Shimizu gives today that every emotion of the viewer can be projected onto Hello Kitty. Tsuji thought the design was “quite good”, but never dreamed that this cat would one day become Sanrio's most important figure.

It was first used in 1975 on a small wallet that sold for 240  yen . On the wallet, Kitty sits between a milk bottle and a goldfish bowl, above it is written "Hello!" In red. The item sold well, and Sanrio quickly launched other products featuring Hello Kitty, including stationery, toys, and watches. Sales doubled in 1975 and again in 1976 when Sanrio first sold licenses. The first Hello Kitty product manufactured under license from Sanrio was a children's futon manufactured by Nishikawa Sangyo .

During this period of rapid growth, Shimizu left the company and Setsuko Yonekubo took over the job of managing the Hello Kitty brand. She gave the kitten its first standing pose and, among other things, put it in the cockpit of a small propeller plane and on the back of a dolphin. At the end of 1979 she left the company.

The enthusiasm for Hello Kitty had waned a bit, and company boss Tsuji therefore commissioned several of his designers to develop new ideas. Yuko Yamaguchi put Kitty to a blue wing on which there is a pink tea mug filled with red roses. Papa and Mama White and their twin sister Mimmy stand around them and a few sixteenth notes float over the whole scene. This design was never used on products, but Yamaguchi, who had only been with Sanrio for about a year and a half, was offered the job of head supervisor of the brand, which she has held continuously since January 1980. At first she was skeptical whether she could enjoy looking after an already finished and established figure in the medium and long term, but in contrast to American companies, which often strictly regulate the shape, size and other characteristics of their characters, she had at Sanrio more freedom, of course within certain limits, to experiment with the designs. For example, in order to score points not only with little girls but also with older teenagers, in the late eighties she drew a white silhouette of Kitty on a black background. However, this design was not cute enough for company boss Tsuji.

The brand experienced its second big boom in the mid-1990s, when Japan gradually recovered from the recession and mothers who had grown up with Hello Kitty increasingly bought products for their own children. In addition, the product range in this retro wave was expanded to include older teenagers and adults. Hello Kitty celebrated the big breakthrough in this upswing in 1997 when pop diva Tomomi Kahara came out as a big Hello Kitty fan on the well-known television show Utaban . Within a few days, sales in the Sanrio stores then doubled. According to some market observers, the comeback is largely thanks to chief designer Yamaguchi, who gave the kitten a pink background and replaced the bow with a five-petalled flower. It also got a summery tan on some summer products.

Products

Micky Green with a Hello Kitty guitar

For mass-produced articles, Sanrio takes 3% license fees, for more special articles 8% and more. More than half of Sanrio's annual revenue of $ 1 billion comes from sales of Hello Kitty products. There are more than 50,000 products in over 60 countries.

Originally young girls were the target group for Hello Kitty products; there are now products for customers of all ages. Products range from stickers, dolls, candy, toys, clothing and stationery to toasters, vacuum cleaners, guitars, perfume, jewelry, credit cards, televisions, cell phones, computer accessories and cars. Hello Kitty has become a brand for so-called “ kidults ”, i.e. adults who consciously retain childish behavior and preferences.

There are several Hello Kitty television series, the oldest dating from 1987, and numerous computer, console, and mobile games.

Sanrio operates two theme parks in Japan, mainly dedicated to Hello Kitty, Sanrio Puroland in Tokyo prefecture and Harmonyland in Ōita prefecture . A third theme park opened in Anji in the Chinese province of Zhejiang in July 2015 . In Yuanlin ( Taiwan ) there is a maternity clinic designed with Hello Kitty.

Others

McDonald's Singapore

At the beginning of 2000, Hello Kitty dolls were sold in McDonald’s branches in Singapore . This sparked such an onslaught that there was a riot that injured several people. Even the government and parliament dealt with the incidents. McDonald's finally decided to publicly apologize in large-format newspaper advertisements and no longer sell the dolls directly in the branches, but instead issue vouchers that could be redeemed from July 2000.

Hello Kitty "vibrator"

In 1997, Genyo , one of the numerous licensees of Sanrio's Hello Kitty, launched a "vibrating shoulder massager". The device was officially licensed and approved by Sanrio.

It was a pink stick with the Hello Kitty face emblazoned on it. At the top was a seated Hello Kitty figure with a teddy bear , and at the bottom was a dial. It was sold through toy stores and family restaurants.

Around 1999, an increasing number of videos were published showing the use of the vibrator as a sex toy. The Hello Kitty vibrator quickly spread in commercial Japanese sex videos . Finally, it was marketed as a “cult toy” for adults via vending machines in love hotels .

Sanrio soon became aware of this development, but could do little about it. The device had been approved by Sanrio himself and was thus an official Hello Kitty product. In addition, Genyo stubbornly stuck to the expensive license.

The vibrator only disappeared from the market when Genyo became embroiled in a financial affair. Both the President of Genyo and the vice president and the head of the factory in China that produced the vibrators, came for tax evasion into prison . At Sanrio, this was the occasion to withdraw the license and to have the molds confiscated and destroyed for production .

Hello Kitty to the Thai police

In 2007, Thai police officers who were guilty of minor administrative offenses (such as being late and others) had to wear a pink Hello Kitty armband for a few days each, which had the character of a disciplinary measure.

Hello Kitty at EVA Air

EVA Air plane with Hello Kitty

From 2005 to 2009 an Airbus A330-200 of the Taiwanese EVA Air flew as Hello Kitty Jet . The outside of the airplane was painted with Hello Kitty motifs. The flight tickets and luggage tags as well as various advertising materials were kept in a suitable design. The plane mainly operated between Taiwan and China . In 2012 the idea was resumed and three new A330-300s designed in three different Hello Kitty themes: Hello Kitty - With Magic Stars (internal name Magic Jet), Hello Kitty - Loves Apples (Apple Jet) and Hello Kitty - Around the World ( Global Jet). For this purpose, over 100 items were designed in Hello Kitty design, some of them specifically for each aircraft. The flight attendants wear uniforms adapted to the respective aircraft theme. Suitable desserts or entire menus are on the menu.

In order to meet the demand, two A330-200s were also redesigned in 2012 for pending overhauls: Hello Kitty - Happy Music (Music Jet) and Hello Kitty - Speed ​​Puff (Speed ​​Jet). In 2013, a 777-300ER was converted into Hello Kitty - Sanrio Family Hand in Hand (Family Jet). Other figures by Sanrio are also included here.

Reception in art

Hello Kitty found its way into modern art . The contemporary artist Tom Sachs repeatedly portrayed the “merchandising icon” Hello Kitty with its “almost Buddhist nothingness” figuratively in various contexts. In 1994 he provoked in New York with a nativity scene depicting Hello Kitty as the Virgin Mary. In 2008 he placed a three meter tall Hello Kitty bronze sculpture painted white in front of the Eiffel Tower . This is now in the Thaddaeus Ropac gallery in Paris.

literature

  • Ken Belson, Brian Bremner: Hello Kitty - The remarkable story of Sanrio and the billion dollar feline phenomenon , Wiley & Sons 2004, ISBN 0-470-82094-2
  • Andreas Neuenkirchen: Hello Kitty - A phenomenon conquers the world , Metrolit Verlag 2014, ISBN 978-3-8493-0328-0
  • Christine Yano: Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty's Trek Across the Pacific , Duke University Press, 2013

Web links

Commons : Hello Kitty  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sanrio - Hello Kitty Family ( Memento of the original from June 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hellokitty.ne.jp
  2. ↑ Hello Kitty ( Memento of the original from June 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sanrio.co.jp
  3. ↑ Ken Belson, Brian Bremner: Hello Kitty: The remarkable story of Sanrio and the billion dollar feline phenomenon , Wiley & Sons 2004, ISBN 0-470-82094-2 , pp. 39-41, 64, 67
  4. ↑ Shintaro Tsuji, CEO, Sanrio
  5. ↑ Ken Belson, Brian Bremner: Hello Kitty: The remarkable story of Sanrio and the billion dollar feline phenomenon , Wiley & Sons 2004, ISBN 0-470-82094-2 , p. 68
  6. ↑ 10 Questions for Yuko Yamaguchi
  7. ↑ Ken Belson, Brian Bremner: Hello Kitty: The remarkable story of Sanrio and the billion dollar feline phenomenon , Wiley & Sons 2004, ISBN 0-470-82094-2 , p. 70
  8. ↑ Ken Belson, Brian Bremner: Hello Kitty: The remarkable story of Sanrio and the billion dollar feline phenomenon , Wiley & Sons 2004, ISBN 0-470-82094-2 , p. 72
  9. ↑ Ken Belson, Brian Bremner: Hello Kitty: The remarkable story of Sanrio and the billion dollar feline phenomenon , Wiley & Sons 2004, ISBN 0-470-82094-2 , p. 83
  10. ↑ Ken Belson, Brian Bremner: Hello Kitty: The remarkable story of Sanrio and the billion dollar feline phenomenon , Wiley & Sons 2004, ISBN 0-470-82094-2 , p. 73
  11. ↑ Ken Belson, Brian Bremner: Hello Kitty: The remarkable story of Sanrio and the billion dollar feline phenomenon , Wiley & Sons 2004, ISBN 0-470-82094-2 , pp. 74-75
  12. ↑ Ken Belson, Brian Bremner: Hello Kitty: The remarkable story of Sanrio and the billion dollar feline phenomenon , Wiley & Sons 2004, ISBN 0-470-82094-2 , pp. 77-78
  13. ↑ Top cat: how 'Hello Kitty' conquered the world
  14. ↑ Ken Belson, Brian Bremner: Hello Kitty: The remarkable story of Sanrio and the billion dollar feline phenomenon , Wiley & Sons 2004, ISBN 0-470-82094-2 , p. 67
  15. ↑ Ken Belson, Brian Bremner: Hello Kitty: The remarkable story of Sanrio and the billion dollar feline phenomenon , Wiley & Sons 2004, ISBN 0-470-82094-2 , p. 79
  16. ↑ Ken Belson, Brian Bremner: Hello Kitty: The remarkable story of Sanrio and the billion dollar feline phenomenon , Wiley & Sons 2004, ISBN 0-470-82094-2 , p. 84
  17. ↑ Top cat: how 'Hello Kitty' conquered the world
  18. ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/peoplesdaily/article-3145973/Hello-Kitty-theme-park-China-opens-doors-guests-aiming-shake-bad-reviews.html
  19. ↑ 'First ever' Hello Kitty-themed maternity hospital opens in Taiwan (and aims to reduce the stress of childbirth)
  20. ↑ Snack chain feared for security in Singapore  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.rp-online.de  In: RP ONLINE
  21. ^ Peter Payne: The History of the Hello Kitty Vibrator . In: Jmate.com
  22. ^ Thai cops punished by Hello Kitty. news.bbc.co.uk, August 6, 2007
  23. ↑ http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2005/12/13/2003284256
  24. ↑ Hello Kitty Jet Travels with You (English)
  25. ^ Hilarie M. Sheets: Art & Design - This Is His Life: A Blue Whale and Hello Kitty. The New York Times , May 4, 2008, accessed December 31, 2017 .
  26. ^ Paul Des Marais: Tom Sachs Hello Kitty. Los Angeles Modern Auctions, November 14, 2011, accessed December 31, 2017 .
  27. ↑ Tom Sachs Exhibitions - Bronze Collection (2008) - Photo documentation of the Paris installation