In Japan, every governmental organization has a mascot. It’s a national obsession. Most are so bad, all I can do is laugh and shake my head and wonder what they were thinking. In this post, I’ll share with you some of the particularly bad ones (in no particular order). Unintentional comedy follows. Enjoy!
1. Yokohama 150th Anniversary Festival

This mascot is holding his abdomen and looks like he’s about to pee himself. Just look at the expression of effort in his eyes. He’s really holding it in!
Take a few minutes and see if you can guess what he symbolizes. Then highlight the next paragraph for the answer.
Highlight here >>> His name is Tanemaru. He is the mascot for Yokohama’s 150th Anniversary commemorating Admiral Perry’s arrival in the port and subsequent opening up of Japan to the west. “Tane” means seed, and “-maru” is a suffix given to ships. The “pants” of Tanemaru are a boat, so the meaning I’m guessing is the sea-borne arrival of new ideas (the seed of progress, etc). On the official site though, it says: “Tanemaru embodies the spirit of the camphor tree that stands in the courtyard of the Yokohama Archives of History, watching over Japan since the opening of the country 150 years ago.” Admiral Perry’s famous “Black Ships” were.. um… black.. but Tanemaru’s bottom is red, so he must just represent the port and not one of Perry’s boats. On the Japanese website, he is able to fly around like a helicopter with his seed propeller, which is totally unnecessary and destroys the concept of him as a boat, not to mention copying this famous character:<<< END.

..or this one..


“Bon Appetit! my pants are about to fall off.”
2. Nara Prefecture: Sento-kun
This next one is positively creepy and just plain wrong. Nara is famous for 2 things: its native deer population, and the giant Buddha statue at Kamakura (pictured to right). What could be better than combining both aspects into one mascot, right, right?
WRONG!
This unpopular mascot is a fine example of tax yens at work and the poster-boy for design by committee. It reportedly cost 5 million yen ($50,000 USD) and has sparked widespread criticism and even a backlash. Did the government officials not realize that having antlers sprout out of the Buddha might just be seen as just a tad sacrilegious and offend people? It’s like putting a kangaroo pouch on Jesus.

This is just plain scary.

Now there are 2 mascots: this hideous deer-Buddha thing, and one chosen by the people called Manto-kun, which looks like a tater-tot wearing a cape. His name is a pun the word “mantle/manteaux”. His hat is the shape of a temple roof. I guess he’s a deer because he has hooves and antlers.

.. Chopper from One-Piece.

3: Noppon Brothers: Tokyo Tower

Next up is another shitty mascot. Quite literally. They look like rectal suppositories..

.. or worse…

Why do they have to be pink? Tokyo tower is fire-engine red. They have letters on their shirts, just like these 2 other brothers from Canada.

4: Ugly Prefectural logos
Prefectures are like states. Japan has 47 of them, and each one has a logo. The majority of them are as ugly as these breasticles/Fallopian tubes you see below belonging to Kanagawa Prefecture.

For non-Japanese speakers, you can click the links in the green box on the right to see all the prefecture pages.