Hello Kitty And Friends Happiness Parade Dances Its Way Onto Switch Next Week

Pompompurin and cinnamoroll each have solo albums. Badtz-Maru has a solo album and is part of Hapidanbui, who have extremely popular songs. Kuromi has single that charted at #1 in Japan, 2 solo CDs and like 5 with My Melo. There are like 2 TV series a year and each has a sound-track. Hello Kitty has a channel where she covers pop songs from Japan. I really wish they had just focused on that rather then use licensed music.

A parade game...I feel obligated to buy this.

I'm waiting for Hello Kitty Island Adventure to come to switch. Not this...actually this looks alright.

Will get this if it ever has a physical release.

The only game I need in life.

" Hello Kitty universe (HKU? Is that a thing? We hope not)"

If you only knew ...

The HKU has multiple continuities, including a "core" continuity where all Sanrio characters are "real" and work as actors and the production team for Sanrio entertainment properties. They go out of their way to make it visable. Hello Kitty (as a mascot costume) walks from the train station to Sanrio HQ at least twice a month so that people can say they saw her walking to work. They made huge changes to the way they released content in the pandemic, even with computer generated characters, because they wanted all Sanrio characters to be seen as observing lock-down protocols. Hello Kitty's sister moved in with her and they were the only ones seen in videos together.

I could go on. I want to go on.

Who loves flowers in the sun? Or a party just for one?
It's Kitty ... Kitty, Kitty! 😻
Who'll invite her friends along? They could hear her play a song!
It's Kitty ... Kitty, Kitty! 😻

If you don't know where she lives you've might of missed her, and her papa and her mama, and there's Mimmy, that's her sister. They're an itty bitty pretty kitty family, but even though they're kitties they're like you and me. Rainy days turn sunny funny wait and see!

This looks adorable. If it gets a physical release, I'm in.

This looks amazing, I can't wait.

@samuelvictor

The Hello Kitty Paradise theme is a classic for sure, but for me the de facto Hello Kitty theme song is the 1977 track simply called "Hello Kitty" ... now lovingly called "The Popcorn Song".

https://youtu.be/b5-GEK80hyA

@HeadPirate Oh wow thank you for sharing that, I was grinning from ear to ear! What a perfect rendition of the song and I love how they animated her to be "3d 2d"... its perfect! 😻 In my headcanon, thats how Kitty looks and moves IRL, simple circle shadow and all! 😹

When I was little, I didn't know much about Hello Kitty but I loved the Miffy books and always felt the two were similar. Becoming a fan of Japanese culture through reading early Super NES magazines which covered the importing scene, and getting into manga and anime through them, I became aware of Hello Kitty as a brand and thought it was cute, but never saw any of the related media. "Hello Kitty Paradise" was on TV when my kids were growing up and we watched it together and always loved the theme song. Its the first thing that comes to mind when I see Kitty. But of course I know the Popcorn song too from absorbing more Japanese media over time.

@samuelvictor

Thanks for sharing that. I think with almost any media it's always our first exposure that we remember most fondly. We have a similar story ... kinda. I loved Hello Kitty as a child but my parents thought it wasn't gender appropriate. It wasn't until later in my life when I was working in Japan that I realized the fandom was diverse and inclusive. Kitty (same digital one from the song) did a video where she talked about how she felt that reinforcing the idea she's "for girls" is the biggest regret in her life and they had a "middle age man" day at Harmony Land ... made me cry real tears. Now I can't get enough. I'm doing a huge art project on her right now might even get government funding ... which is hilarious.

I wasn't sure what version to share, given one is a lot more down to earth ... but if you loved that video ... here's another smile.

https://youtu.be/VMrYZHuYxPg

@HeadPirate Aww thank you again for sharing, that is a really good version, Kitty playing the piano and dancing was so cute!

I wasn't sure of your gender before and wouldn't have deemed to guess, but as is probably obvious by my username, I'm a male. Not that it should really matter, but for context, a cis-het male, who grew up in the 80s and early 90s. Your story about your parents feeling Hello Kitty wasn't gender appropriate really hits home for me, I don't know if you saw it but we had a long discussion about similar experiences when I was young and how this has lead to changes in my adult life and the media that I now create in my day job to try and counter balance these issues here: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2023/10/nintendos-new-animal-crossing-new-horizons-themed-switch-lites-are-out-now my comments start at #63 and were prompted by the ongoing conversation people were having about the pink vs blue Switch Lites and if it was gender coding by putting the pink one as Isabelle's and the blue one as Timmy & Tommy's.

I'm autistic and to me, characters that I love become "real", so the thought of Kitty having genuine regrets about alienating people by being advertised towards girls is quite sad! But I think its really good that Sanrio nowadays embraces everyone who loves Kitty. She was always meant to be a symbol for happiness and kindness towards others. Those shouldn't be seen as only "feminine" traits, and neither should "cuteness" or "appreciating nature - flowers, animals etc". Though, often all of those things are used that way to gender code characters, which leads to many of my favourite characters in franchises being the girls - for example my favourite Sonic character is Amy, precisely because in the wider canon she is so loving and caring of all the little animals that Sonic rescues from the badniks, and looking after the plants and flowers in their world. But that doesn't mean she doesn't also kick butt when she needs to protect her friends! She's the perfect character to me. But she's the pink hedgehog, not the blue one, so some people think I'm weird for liking her. Thats so nonsensible. Ah well.

@samuelvictor

Wow. That was honestly hard for me to read. I've done a lot of work with the LGBT+ community and I think I've told my own story about saving up and sneaking out to buy myself some My Little Pony dolls and hiding them from my Dad at least a hundred times to people coming to terms with gender dysphoria, but to hear almost the exact story from someone else ... it's pretty amazing. Not to turn this in to a session, and I'm sure you already know this, but talking openly about your experiences with such earnest and honesty makes a world of difference. I guarantee you someone read that and felt hope. Felt like they weren't alone.

You're right about how nonsensible it all is. About 10 years ago I was at a friends house in Japan and her daughter was watching Anime. She wanted to tell me all about her favorites character, a young boy in the show. He dressed mostly in pink, wore eye liner and gloves with lace frill. He was extremely affectionate with his male friends, he sang and danced, was extremely emotional, and he cried all the time. When I asked why she liked him, she said "because he's so manly". It just blew my mind. It's just so arbitrary. The courage to wear flashy colors and stand out using make-up, the strength to show your emotions in public and not being afraid to cry, offering physical comfort though hugs and affection, that's what a "man" was to her.

Sanrio has a group of characters called "Chunen Heroine Ojisan's" or "Middle-Aged Heroine Uncles" ... it's a group of 3 old men who are also magical girls. By day, they work as sararīman, and by night they run around in cute dresses and help people in need. In cannon, Pompompurin has a crush on Snoopy (Yeah, from the Peanuts) and Hello Kitty uses it to talk about how "Love knows no boundaries" ... because he's not a Sanrio character! It's brilliant, because to children who aren't thinking about sexuality, that message is just a positive one that can be applied to race or nationality, but for children who might have started to realize they are different, they obviously will clue in to how she's also talking about how they are both male. I often wonder how different my life would have been if we had positive role-models like that over here in the West. I mean, I love who I am and have had a wonderful life, but you always wonder.

Anyways, I'm rambling. Thank you for the opportunity to do so. It's so perfect this came from a comment on our shared love of Hello Kitty. She would be so happy.

@HeadPirate Thank you for sharing all of that. You sound like a lovely person and someone I'd really get on with. With my current position in the media I really do try and help share these kinds of talking points as much as possible, as well as being open about mental healtrh, my autism, anything that can help normalise things which society has previously not talked about but which are normal parts of life, which has previously lead to people growing up feeling different, or even alienated and alone. While I personally am cis-het I'm very passionate about supporting and helping the LGBT+ communities, especially vocally trans and non-binary people who seem to be the current punching bag of certain sections of the media. I have servearl friends and family members in that comunity who are some of the most lovely people you could ever meet, demonising them makes ZERO sense to me.

Forgive me if I wrote about this in the other thread or if you've seen me mention it elsewhere, but I actually wrote a superhero movie about a male superhero who is quite right leaning, and a non-binary female coded superhero who is left leaning. They both have entirely different ideas of what it means to be a "hero", have their own ill judged predudices against people they disagree with, and also both have their own mental health issues and insecurities based on different struggles they had in their childhood, but also their fixed ideas about what a real "man" or "woman" should be and how they should present to society. Thats all subtlesubtext to a fairly standard but exciting action movie, the crux of which is of course they are antagonists to each other in the begining but by the end have realised that they should team up despite their differences, and can actually learn and grow from each other.

Fairly famously I was offered $30 million budget to make the movie. But they wanted me to implement many changes, not least of all making the non-binary identifying character female, and having them fall in love and kiss at the end of the movie. They also wanted to change some of the racial, sexual/gender, age and body type diverse casting choices that I suggested, and remove some of the jokes and political commentary (mostly anti capitalist sentiment from some characters). All of this was to ensure it would sell to more countries worldwide and make a higher box office return. I refused, and now its a $1.2 million budget indie film instead of $30 million from a major studio. (and yet people on the right think hollywood is "woke". Not at all, they just chase whatever trends they think will be most profitable in specific markets - and "full woke" is not something that sells worldwide).

As it was my first chance to helm a "blockbuster" that is being translated into many languages and shown worldwide, and will have a decent marketing budget so it might get seen by millions of people, I truly feel its really important to make a film that might positively impact people's lives by seeing representation of them on screen. Whether representation of actual minorities and underrepresented or disempowered groups, people on the extremes of the right or left with toxic views, or just people with internalised self hatred for not living up to what society has told them they should be, I hope I'm going to be giving some comfort and perhaps food for thought for some people, while helping them to see others as fellow humans that are a valid and useful part of society.

@HeadPirate I love the story of your friend's daughter. I think the younger generations are far more switched on to this stuff than we are. Whenever I speak to my own (now adults in early 20s) kids, my younger friends and colleagues, or even just watching younger youtubers who make philosophical or political videos, I always feel I learn something from them and become a better person in the process. I'm a work in progress, as are we all, but I feel the world is in good hands with younger millenials and Gen Z, once the old guard have retired or moved on.

I'm actually a HUGE Peanuts nerd. I have what may be the largest collection of Peanuts books in the world, pretty much everything that exists in multiple languages 😂 Schulz is a hero of mine. Japan's fascination with Snoopy, and the fact he's often associated with Sanrio is very interesting to me. Obviously I can see visual similarities.

Thats also super cool about those Sanrio male characters. I LOVE magical girl anime, my favourite anime and magna of all time are actually Tokyo Mew Mew and its various spinoffs (which included a gender swapped version btw).

My own gender identity is pretty fixed - I think I look like a man, I feel comfortable being a man, I've never felt like I shouldn't be a man. I like being "the man" in my relationships, if I can say that without sounding toxic. But its always been a running joke for close friends and my partners that if I could click my fingers and turn into a woman, I would. Or that I'd like to be reincarnated as a woman. I don't have any kind of gender dysmorphia or feel that I'm trans. Its just that my personal preferences for aesthetics in most media lean more towards things that are gender coded as "for girls" by society.

But frankly, I think many men feel that way. And I think its completely unrelated to your biological sex, or your sexuality, or anything else. People just like what they like, its personal taste like what food or music you enjoy. Why police it?

I'm sorry that you struggled with certain things that were hard to deal with when you were a child. I'm very happy you seem content and at peace with yourself now, and I think its wonderful you share your story and help others. 💜