It is weird, but then again.. this is the land of “cute”. I like f. It’s like a samurai/castle transformer! Hmm.. would a Japanese castle/samurai be an autobot or a decepticon?

BTW, I haven’t been paying attention to twitter today.. is this the first day of the new design being live? Looks wonderful! Congrats!

I with you, Oshirobo kun kick ass.

The new design….. just putting it out there. Will tweak then apply to main site. Tanoshimi.

I am tired of every mascot in Japan being cute. For once can’t they come up with something else? Especially for these historic castles with an amazing history that includes great samurai battles. It is just so tiresome and annoying to see these cute mascots for these castles. I am sooooo tired of the cute aspect in Japan.

lol.I’m picking up on the subtle signs woven into your comment that there is a possibility that you dislike cute mascots, especially when they relate to Japan.

I’m with you Jon, I’m looking forward to the backlash (which may well occur after I’m gone.)

I’m kind of resigned to the “cute” thing, just like the wires everywhere or Japanese people telling me that Japan is the only country with 4 seasons. At least none of these mascots are hello kitty, eh?

When did this cute thing start anyways?

I don’t dislike all cute mascots in Japan. But I am just a little tired of EVERYTHING being cute. Even things such as this that involve historical places and historical people in in really life were involved in bloody, violent samurai battles. I understand these places are tourist attractions. I certainly am not saying that they should have violent, scary mascots. But it just seems too much that everything is cute, especially these great old castles and battlefields.

I think the cute phenomenon will be around for a very long time. Maybe long after I am gone.

Violent, scary mascots? I love the idea.

Unsure where it started. But, I did see a show where they talked about the Japan v’s the world computer games. It said Japanese games have these over-the-top / completely ridiculous characters, game concepts, etc… because school/work like is so tough they want to escape to another world.

Anyway, it’s hard for me to sum it up here, but I wonder if that doesn’t have something to do with it….

I’m resigned to characters being cute too. They have to be at least somewhat cute. Think of your sports mascots. All more or less cute too. One problem is whether we need a character for every blasted thing out there. I think it was the mayor of Yokohama who said a few months ago that it was getting out of hand in Yokohama and asked people to keep it under control. I guess every ward, utilities office or local office of any type had their own character and it was getting absurd. There are starting to be some complaints on the net and in the news about these ‘yuru kyara’ too. Anyway, people should be embarrassed to use such low quality poorly thought designs.

Wow, I had no idea politicians had gotten involved. It does seem highly odd that government offices of any nature have a cute mascot. Unless they are targeting kids i.e. fire safety, stranger danger, etc…

I understand that (almost) every entity has to think of themselves as a brand & market themselves accordingly, but mascots because everyone else is doing it is lame! There, I’ve said it.

I love the various Japanese mascots (I wish we had similar ones here in Canada). I wish there was one central page where us English speakers can get information on them.

Hi & welcome Floralesley. I’m glad you enjoyed the mascots. Which one is your favourite?

There are definitely Japanese language mascot pages out there, maybe you could be the person to make an English language one. Just a thought.

[...] Castle mascots   Posted Oct, 31st (15 days [...]

I’m with Floralesley. Personally Shiromaru hime is my favorite and she does make a great town/castle mascot. I can hardly wait to revisit once the restoration is complete, just a few more years.