Hello Kitty
Official Name: Kitty White
Siblings: twin, Mimmy
Cousin: N/A
Birthday: November 1st
Debut: 1974
Designer Picture:
Current Designer: Yuko Yamaguchi
Past Designers: Creator of Character, YUKO SHIMIZU
Species: Cat
Languages: N/A
Height: 5 Apples
Weight: 3 Apples
Blood Type: A
Accessories: Bow on her left ear
Birth: suburbs of London, England
Parents: Mary and George White
Grandparents: Margaret and Anthony White
Residence: Lives with her twin and parents
Sidekick: Bear or Tiny Chum
Pals: to name of a few, Joey, Tippy, Fee
Pets: Charmmy Kitty
Character Trait: Bright, gentle, sweet
Dream Job: Pianist or Poet
Favorite Foods: Mama's apple pie
Hobbies: playing the piano, baking cookies
Source: Wikipedia
In 1962, Shintaro Tsuji, founder of Sanrio, began selling rubber sandals with flowers painted on them.[15] Tsuji noted the profits gained by adding a cute design to the sandals and hired cartoonists to design cute characters for his merchandise.[15] The company produced a line of character merchandise around gift-giving occasions.[16] Hello Kitty was designed by Yuko Shimizu and was added to the lineup of early Sanrio characters in 1974.[9] The character's first appearance on an item was a vinyl coin purse in Japan where she was pictured sitting between a bottle of milk and a goldfish bowl.[17] She first appeared in the United States in 1976.[8]
Sanrio decided to make Hello Kitty British because at the time when she was created, foreign countries, in particular Britain, were trendy in Japan. In addition, Sanrio already had a number of characters set in the US and it wanted Hello Kitty to be different.[10][18] Shimizu got the name Kitty from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, where in a scene early in the book Alice plays with a cat she calls Kitty.[19] Sanrio's motto is "social communication" and Tsuji wanted the brand name to reflect that. He first considered "Hi Kitty" before settling on "Hello" for the greeting.[20]
Spokespeople for Sanrio have said that Hello Kitty does not have a mouth because they want people to "project their feelings onto the character" and "be happy or sad together with Hello Kitty."[10][21] Another explanation Sanrio has given for her lack of a mouth is that she "speaks from the heart. She's Sanrio's ambassador to the world and isn't bound to any particular language".[18] Representatives for Sanrio have said they see Hello Kitty as a symbol of friendship, and they hope she will encourage friendship between people across the world.[10] While there has been some speculation[22][23] that Hello Kitty has its origins in Maneki Neko, and that the name Hello Kitty itself is a back-translation of Maneki Neko, which means beckoning cat in English, no definitive statement supports that speculation
Reception
The Hello Kitty brand rose to greater prominence during the late 1990s. At that time, several celebrities, such as Mariah Carey, had adopted Hello Kitty as a fashion statement.[18] Newer products featuring the character can be found in a large variety of American department stores.
The Dutch artist Dick Bruna, creator of Miffy, has suggested that Hello Kitty is a copy of Miffy (in Dutch: Nijntje), being rendered in a similar style, stating disapprovingly in an interview for the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph:
- 'That,' he says darkly, 'is a copy [of Miffy], I think. I don't like that at all. I always think, "No, don't do that. Try to make something that you think of yourself".'[61]
Mercis, the firm that managed copyrights for Bruna, took Sanrio to court over their Hello Kitty-associated character Cathy, a rabbit which made her first appearance in 1976 and which Mercis argued infringed the copyright for Miffy. A court in Amsterdam ruled in favour of Mercis in November 2010 and ordered Sanrio to stop the production and sale of merchandise featuring Cathy in the Benelux countries. However, in June of the following year the two companies announced that they had reached a settlement agreement to end their legal dispute, resulting in Sanrio ceasing to use the Cathy character and the two firms jointly donating €150,000 for reconstruction after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.[62]
Musti, a cat character created by Belgian cartoonist Ray Goossens, was also cited as an inspiration for Hello Kitty.[63][64]
In May 2008, Japan named Hello Kitty the ambassador of Japanese tourism in both China and Hong Kong, which are two places where the character is exceptionally popular among children and young women. This marked the first time Japan's tourism ministry had appointed a fictional character to the role.[65] Dr Sharon Kinsella, a lecturer at Oxford University on Japanese sociology, called the selection of Hello Kitty "a bit farcical"; "as if a dumbed-down cultural icon ... can somehow do something significant to alter the gnarly and difficult state of China-Japan relations."[18]
UNICEF has also awarded Hello Kitty the exclusive title of UNICEF Special Friend of Children.[66][67]
Hello Kitty's popularity in Japan peaked in the late 1990s, when she was the country's top-grossing character. In 2002, Hello Kitty lost her place as the top-grossing character in Japan in the Character Databank popularity chart. In a 2010 survey, she was in third place behind Anpanman and Pikachu from Pokémon.[25] In 2010, The New York Times attributed the character's relative decline in Japan to her biography not being "compelling enough to draw many fans", wrote that analysts called the characterization "weak",[25] and added that Hello Kitty not having a mouth has dampened her success as an animated TV character.[25] Hello Kitty has nevertheless remained one of the top three highest-grossing characters in Japan as of 2013.[68] Overseas, her global popularity has increased over the years, with worldwide annual sales reaching $8 billion in 2013.[13] She has been particularly popular in other Asian countries for decades, such as in China, where her cultural impact is comparable to that of Barbie in the Western world.
Family
Mimmy
Mimmy wears a yellow bow on her right ear. She is more shy, introverted and feminine. She has a more thoughtful and polite personality.
Parents
George D.O.B. - June 3rd.Mary D.O.B. - September 14.
Grandparents
Friends
Daniel Starr (Boyfriend) -
Nickname: Dear Daniel. Childhood friend. Naive, sensitive, trendy, and sentimental, who is touched by small gestures. His father is a photographer and had been to Africa due to this reason. He aspires to be a photographer as well. He had ended up in New York before returning to Hello Kitty's side.
DOB: May 3rd
Debut: 1999
Tiny Chum -
Teddy bear
Joey -
HK's best friend in class.
Judy (mouse) -
Joey's girlfriend.
Lotti (squirrel) -
Raleigh's sister, who sings songs
Raleigh (squirrel) -
Shares the secret of the forest
Tippy (bear) -
Strong and friendly, who wants to be HK's boyfriend
Thomas -
A bit of an embarrassing bear. Fun jokes that make everyone laugh
Fee (sheep) -
Talkative and active
Tracy (racoon) -
Mischievous and the strongest in the class
Jodie -
Future dream is a researcher
Tim & Tammy -
Siblings
Pets
George White, HK's father gave Charmmy (a white persian kitty) to Hello Kitty as a gift. Traits are very well-mannered, obedient, and quiet. Charmmy Kitty has a friend named Sugar, a djungarian hamster. The hamster was given by Dear Daniel to Hello Kitty. Charmmy has a younger sister, Honeycute. Her sister wears a bow on each ear, wears a pink love heart bracelet, and the difference between the sisters are Honeycute's pale pink fur coat.
Sources: Wikipedia, Sanrio, Wikia, Sanrio Korea, Sanrio JP,
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