Melon Kuma

In Japan, cute mascot characters are very popular to help promote many stores, restaurants and merchandise.

Even the Tokyo police, fire department and Japanese military have mascots.

Also, cities and prefectures in Japan have cute or funny mascot characters that are related to some local food or animal.
They are used to help promote tourism to the area.

These characters are normally cute … or at least try to be.

So, the new mascot for the northernmost Japanese prefecture of Hokkaido was on the news recently because not only is the character not cute… but it’s actually on there scary side!

Hokkaido is famous for the wild bears (熊 (kuma) in Japanese) and the cantaloupe (メロン (melon) in Japanese)… so the character is 「メロン熊」(“Melon-kuma“).

It’s a bear with a Japanese cantaloupe melon for a head … and has angry eyes and huge teeth!
It’s also fond of trying to bite people!

Quite different from the usual mascots in Japan!

Here’s a video of the melon-kuma trying to bite people and promote tourism to Hokkaido:

Voice of 目玉おやじ R.I.P.

I’ve mentioned before that I like the Japanese manga and anime titled 「ゲゲゲの鬼太郎」 (“Gegege-no-Kitarou“).

It’s about a group of 妖怪 (ghouls) who help humans.

I have a few of the manga, I watch the anime on TV sometimes, and my family and I went to see both of the live-action movies at the theater.

I also like the artist, 水木しげる (Shigeru Mizuki). His life story is fascinating.
I wrote a bit about him and the 「ゲゲゲの鬼太郎」 (“Gegege-no-Kitarou“) on another post.
Click here read it.

Anyways, 田の中勇 (Isamu Tanonaka), the 政友 (“Seiyuu“)…”voice actor”…who did the voice of one of this show’s main characters–「目玉おやじ」 (“Medama-oyaji“) died last Wednesday.
He was 77 years old.

田の中勇 (Isamu Tanonaka), R.I.P.

I wrote a post last September about the death of the artist of another popular Japanese manga…Click here to read it.