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THE SANRIO COMPANY holds a leading position in the kawaii industry, with more than 500 design characters in its portfolio. Its undisputed star character, of course, is Hello Kitty, but Sanrio's lasting contribution to the Japanese kawaii culture spreading throughout the world is far from limited to Hello Kitty - the company has produced approx. 450 design characters over the years!
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One of Sanrio's strongest unisex characters is the "badwill ambassador" of the gang, the little penguin Badtz-Maru, who aims to be tough and cool and "the boss of everything". The name is based on the Japanese terms for X and O, signifying "wrong" and "right". Badtz-Maru has been very successful in merchandising and promotions and was the official mascot for the 2006 FIBA World Championship of basketball.
If most Sanrio branded products come in pink or light blue, Badtz-Maru is the exception - he and his friends (Pandaba, a girl panda; Hana-Maru, a kind and gentle white seal; and Pochi, his pet alligator) are often seen on black, silver or purple packaging for products with a slick and modern techno look.
Badtz-Maru is marketed to both males and females. He can be portrayed as almost anything – an astronaut, a motorcyclist, a DJ, a camouflage monster, a basketball player, a boxer... Licensing products typically range from stationery to novelty and gifts.
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.
Plus Licens represents Sanrio for merchandising, promotion and publishing rights to Badtz-Maru in the Nordic countries and Central and Eastern Europe.
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