San-X Feel Good Plushie Time

I started my journey to alleviate boredom today by kicking off Google's parental and country filters and clicking the I Feel Lucky button. The first place I fell into was San-x's Japanese site. http://san-x.co.jp/

It seemed pretty innocuous at first. Got some bears on there, a button of what appears to be two seal sacks humping in the corner. Nothing strange for Japan. Then I started to click around and I realized where I'd seen the word San-X before. San-X is a company that deals entirely with kid's toys. Mostly plushes. I actually own one on their nyankos. (White kitten that dresses up as various foods, mine is a strawberry cake. You can see it here.) I bought it at MTAC and didn't think too hard about it. It was four of my favorite things in one, cat, plushie, strawberry, and cake. Yay Japan.

My curiosity was peaked. I decided to look up what other sorts of forms my nyanko came in. (By the way, for anyone interested, the word Nyanko is a lot like us saying Kitty. Nyan is the sound they associate with Meow there, and Ko means child. Often child of, so if someone has the name Kumiko, then it usually means child of Kumi or even nicer, child of everlasting beauty. The more you know!)

The first picture I found on Google was one of a nyanko nugget meal on a website called Spiral and Circle which seems to specialize in Japanese collectibles. A lot of these were sort of cute up until I ran into ones like the Nyanko Cat Hot Pot Plush Set for $175. "Free Shipping!" the site boasts. I'd hope so for that lot of cash.

Deciding to wander back to the San-X website I found something even more fun.A downloads section. Complete with wallpapers and icon sets of their different products which include:

Rilakkuma in Japanese is sort of the mashings of the word relax and bear. According to the website Relakkuma is apparently often see sitting by a clothes line of suits that look exactly like him and waiting for them to dry. With him is a smaller white bear and a duck. The duck is often playing straight man to the pranks that the smaller bear plays on Relakkuma.

Kerori is a frog that changes color depending on his mood.

Nyan Nyan Nyanko I mentioned earlier.

Monokuro Boo are minimalist pigs. There are two of them, one black, one white, square and simple.

Tarepanda means lazy panda. Or droopy panda, which is the translation I prefer. According to the site Tarepanda is very lazy and gets around by rolling at 2.75 meters per hour. The word Tare specifically means to lay on your tummy. Tarepanda is really popular as he got the most hits on my google search.

Mamegoma means bean seal. As you can tell, the people at San-X are really creative at naming things.

Jewel Cat is, from what I can tell, meant to appeal to older Japanese girls. Kind of like how we have Lisa Frank . Come on, girls, I know you remember her.

Kutusitanyanko. Oh God Kutusitanyanko. Kutusitanyanko creeps me out. So very very much. The name means cat wearing socks and he apparently enjoys piano.

Sabokappa is a kappa mixed with a cactus. This one is actually meant to be an air freshener. The word Kappa means river child and it's pretty famous in Japanese folklore. Just in case you were wondering, a real kappa looks like this. Yeah.

San-X also makes plushes out of foods. A chestnut named Amagurichan, a family of cheeses, a rice grain that's always found at the bottom of the bowl named Ginshari-san, apples, bean vread, peas, a tangerine, and yogurt.

And not to forget Tissue-san and Beer-chan a 20 year old beer fairy.

Om nom kittehs,
Serenity Frost