"Yuru-Kyara" : Many Mascot Dolls in Japan

Seemingly, Japanese people generally prefer mascot dolls. What do you call these kinds of dolls in your country? In Japan, there are hundreds of mascot characters in the region, and that's called “Yuru-Kyara”.

Such mascot dolls are made by companies, city halls, and individuals. Even in the company which I’m working at, actually, we have an original Yuru-Kyara doll.

In this country, the most famous Yuru-Kyara dolls are “Kuma-mon” and “Funassyi”, I can say. Kuma-mon has been created by the Kumamoto prefecture government. Funassyi has been created by the Funabashi city hall and he is very funny.

You may think that they have a lot of spare time on their business, because they can make such characters, in regional governments. Rather, they try to advertise their own local governments earnestly. They hope that many tourists will come to their region. Therefore, many local governments make their own mascot dolls very hard.

Japan is a mysterious country, you may think. That’s right. If they have such free time to make dolls, they have better to get holidays. Because they definitely work without getting holidays.