On Being Convinced To Join The Army By a Cheerful Tangerine

Japan loves mascots. Mascots for products, mascots for towns, even mascots for emergency procedures (the one for earthquakes is a big mythical catfish). Cute and/or terrifying, mascots are now an essential part of any ad campaign in Japan, and can literally generate billions of yen in new revenue. In November I went to see the Yuru-kyara mascot tournament in Hamamatsu, which is basically a big convention where you get to see all the different mascots wandering around, and vote for your favourite. They even have mascot wrestling (I took videos which unfortunately won't load).

Again, I must stress the 'cute/terrifying' dynamic. Some play it safe with baby birds, pigs, cats and so on. Others take a risk - the nearby suburb of Ama chose a sneering dominatrix who whips people with leeks and screams (no, really). No-one liked that. Not even the people who you suspected might be the type to enjoy it. Another surprise was seeing a big smiley tangerine in a khaki cap, who turned out to be the mascot for the Japanese Self-Defense Force. See, even the military can be cute.

P.S. I got a new laptop. It has a Japanese keyboard, which means sometimes it takes me ages to find quote marks and the @ sign. Still, it works okay.