The newly-appointed ‘yuru-kyara’ of Abe and Ishiba for the LDP.
From Hello Kitty to Pokemon, Japan has focused on its creative initiatives for decades, particularly, the character business.The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry even founded a creative industries division in 2010 and have promoted ‘Cool Japan’ internationally.
Domestically too, the character business is undergoing a boom, but in a new way: ‘Yuru-kyara’.
What is a ‘yuru-kyara’? ‘Yuru’ literally means ‘loose’ or ‘relaxing’ and ‘kyara’ stands for the English ‘character’. Generally, they’re recognised as local mascots or icons to mainly promote tourism. They’re usually supposed to be cute in some way and unique, and easy to remember. Kumamon is well known as the mascot for Kumamoto, and also for the fact that the character brought in 29.3 billion 62 million yen through sales of Kumamon-related goods in 2012.
So now, the LDP has also set about creating its own ‘yuru-kyara’. Is this their new strategy to promote the party and make themselves more popular in conformity with ‘yuru-kyara’ success stories?
Many Japanese netizens have found these new characters not to be very ‘yuru’ (relaxing) at all, and have generally bashed the government’s attempts to get involved in the ‘yuru-kyara’ boom.
From 47 News:
LDP ‘Yuru-kyara’ Chosen Based on Abe and Ishiba
The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan held an award ceremony for an illustration competition based on illustrations of the Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and Secretary-General, Ishiba Shigeru for the party convention on March 17. It’s part of media strategies toward the House of Councilors election in the summer and attendees at the party convention received plastic folders and eco-friendly reusable shopping bags with the Abe and Ishiba ‘yuru-kyara’ printed on them.
The acrylic painter, Ms Takahashi Reika (age 47, Sapporo) won the top prize. She drew both in suits and lightning patterned ties. The Prime Minister praised her drawing, calling it ‘well drawn, very cute’. Ms Takahashi said: ‘Please get ahead with your work with lightning speed’.
The LDP has asked for submissions since last November. Out of 400 works submitted, they chose the top prize, PR manager’s prize and so on.
Comments from 2ch.net:
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Fucking hilarious www
名無しさん＠１３周年：
グロすぎる”>Just spilt coffee w
Way too gross.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Nothing relaxing at all.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Where is this going…wwww
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Well the Ishiba one is erm, perfect to punch my way out of a bad mood
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Just cute in an usual way. I’d love to buy some goods if there are any.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Disgusting. At least they should be non human being related characters.
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Whoa, HUGE impact wwww
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Well Ishiba is this…:
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Both fucked up w
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Well I don’t personally hate ‘yuru-kyara’ but even for the government?
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Funny.
I generally support the LDP but these are attractive enough in the
weird way to make me feel like I wanna beat them. wwwwwwwwwwwwww
名無しさん＠１３周年：
This one is enough:
名無しさん＠１３周年：
They just don’t understand what ‘yuru-kyara’ are supposed to be at all!
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Only disgusting to make ‘yuru-kyara’s out of actual persons www
名無しさん＠１３周年：
Please don’t put your efforts into these weird things
