Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Ollie Barder covers Japanese pop-culture and gaming from Tokyo. Kumamon is the mascot for Kumamoto Prefecture and it initially ...

A consortium of Japanese media companies is partnering with U.S. animation studio Tonko House to make an animation series starring Kumamon. The hugely popular character is the mascot of Kumamoto, a ...

Representing everything from prisons to safe sex, Japan has literally thousands of mascots, ranging from the uber-cute to the frankly disturbing. As Tokyo 2020 organisers unveil the mascot for the ...

MIYAZAKI, Japan — For some of Japan’s most adored celebrities, the journey to fame starts in a converted Internet cafe above a bowling alley in Miyazaki. This is where Hiromi Kano runs her unlikely ...

Last year, Japan’s Finance Ministry made the difficult decision to crack down on the number of mascots in the country, ordering officials nationwide to cut back on the use of the life-size yuru-kyara ...

World, it’s time for you to meet Ippei the frog. Ippei-kun is Japan’s World Cup mascot, and he is, in a word, everything. He arrived in Russia on Sunday, and we know that because Ippei-kun has a ...

Japan is a country obsessed with cuteness, known as "kawaii (可愛い)," where everyone -- even the Tokyo Police -- has a mascot. Now that the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, which will be held in Tokyo, ...

In 2010 we were gifted the inaugural Yuru-chara Grand Prix—an annual contest where it’s up to the public to decide which mascot is the best in the land. Winners have been fêted internationally, ...

The importance of dogs should never be understated. One town in Japan is taking this to heart — its appointed its area’s official mascot as Yukimaru Skywalker, a mechanical drone puppy who flies above ...

Japanese students had to select from three pairs of mascots. — -- Voting for the selection of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic mascots ended Thursday. Japanese elementary students had 73 ...

Tokyo's culture places a lot of emphasis on mascots. Those videos that we think are adorably weird of Pikachu parades are old-hat in Japan. Japan's eccentricities are well-documented, with the ...