HELLO KITTY'S PET cat Charmmy Kitty was introduced into Sanrio's character library in 2004 and has grown into a successful stand-alone property as well. Charmmy Kitty resembles Hello Kitty but has more cat-like features.

© 1975, Sanrio Co., Ltd.

Following a pet boom in Japan at the turn of the millennium, Hello Kitty fans came to request that Hello Kitty should have a pet. Hello Kitty designer Yuko Yamaguchi and Sanrio then introduced the non-antropomorphic cat Charmmy Kitty in 2004, and the character has generated so much interest from fans that she not only has developed an identity of her own but also a separate licensing program.

Charmmy Kitty is a white female Persian cat, given to Hello Kitty as a gift from her father. She wears a lacetrimmed bow on her left ear that was a present from Kitty, and her special interest is shiny objects that Kitty collects! Charmmy Kitty is well-mannered, quiet, and listens to whatever Hello Kitty says. Her trademark is a little necklace which holds the silver key to Hello Kitty's jewellry box. It was given to Charmmy Kitty because of her love of shiny and sparkly things.

The Sanrio artists have mastered the fine art of creating pure imagery with instant recognizability and "personality". While their character icons do not need surrounding storylines to make a genuine impression, there is a "soap opera" quality to several of Sanrio's properties, with a number of subsidiary personalities revolving around the brand character. The Sanrio style was deliberately developed to differ from bold American cartoons with aggressive colors and sharp lines - more subtle, with rounder features, more pastel colors and a kind of coziness. The characters' limbs are shorter, the view is often full frontal and the pose iconic and static. As design icons, Sanrio's kawaii properties represent an aestethic quality that embodies values like care, innocence and gentle silliness and seems to respond to basic and universal human needs, for children and adults alike.