Japan loves mascots. With a staggering count of over 3500 recorded mascots in the country, Japan unmistakably takes the lead in the realm of mascot culture. The most well-known category of Japanese mascots are the Yuru Kyara or Yuru Chara. These kawaii furry motivators are created to promote a business, event, or specific region.

An introduction to Yuru Kyara

Often local Japanese governments create yuru kyaras to promote, spread awareness, or even use it for the purpose of branding, giving a cute face to their organizations. So does Piipo-kun represent the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, a little orange-ish leprechaun looking fella that can be found on all Kobans (police boxes) and police cars patrolling the streets of Tokyo.

But the mascots sometimes also represent entire prefectures or cities. In 2010 the Kumamoto government created what is probably the most famous yuru kyara of all time: Kumamon, a black bear with its signature red cheeks. Kumamon was created for a 2010 campaign with the goal of drawing tourists to the prefecture after the opening of the Kyushu Shinkansen line.

Getting stuck

As you may have noticed, these mascots don’t just live in the digital realm, but come to life as giant life-sized figures, aka someone dressed in a big Kumamon suit.

One thing about running around dressed as an oversized muppet is that it might be hard to get through tight spaces. As the phenomenon of yuru kyara grew in popularity, so did the amount of pictures that emerged of the mascots getting stuck in daily life situations, to the point where people, or even other mascots have to come to the rescue.