One day in late 2003, a little brown bear named Rilakkuma made his way into the home of a young 20-something office worker, Kaoru. Taking up residence in her tiny apartment, he spends his day doing nothing much other than enjoying pancakes, listing to music, and basically lazing around. Just as Rilakkuma suddenly appeared in Kaoru’s apartment, so did he make his sudden entrance into the kawaii character scene. Not an instant hit, it would take a couple years before the world realized his true powers. Few, least of all San-X, could have predicted the overwhelming popularity of this lazy bear that would soon catapult their stationery company into international kawaii character domination!
To learn more about the early days of San-X check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, or keep on reading to hear all about how this lazy brown bear would revolutionize the kawaii world 🙂
Rilakkuma is the brainchild of San-X illustrator Aki Konda. Since his debut in 2003, Rilakkuma has not only been featured on numerous stationery and other merchandise, but also been a brand and travel ambassador, and even starred in his own Netflix series. Not too bad for a bear that celebrates laziness! Rilakkuma’s name is a combination of ‘rila’ from ‘relax’ and ‘kuma’ meaning bear, so his can be translated as ‘relaxed bear’. According to Konda, she came up with the idea for Rilakkuma while watching a TV program featuring an overly pampered pet chihuahua. At that time, San-X required all in-house designers to develop one new character a month. Stressed over what to do for her monthly design, Kando thought how nice it would be to be a spoiled house pet and get to play and relax all day rather than deal with the pressures of work and adulting.
In September 2003, Rilakkuma was launched with a four-panel comic series titled Rilakkuma Seikatsu, detailing his unique origin story. Kando also added a mysterious zipper on his back with blue polka dot material peeking out. Just what is underneath is we don’t really know *shock*. And no kawaii character would be complete without some quirky sidekicks. Kiiro-Tori (literally “Yellow Bird” in Japanese), was Kaoru’s pet bird, living a regular birdlife. After Rilakkuma’s unexpected appearance he suddenly became liberated from his birdcage. He now spends his days picking up after Rilakkuma and scolding him for being too lazy (someone’s gotta have that job!). Korilakkuma also suddenly appeared in Kaoru’s apartment (but not till August 2004). In contrast to Rilakkuma’s laziness, Korilakkuma is full of energy and loves mischief and of course cute toys. She has a red button in the center of her chest, suggesting that she too may not actually be a real bear! In 2017, Chairoi-koguma, a real honey bear Korilakkuma befriended while playing in the forest, joined the team.
It’s easy to understand why a cute character celebrating laziness and non-productivity would be so appealing to a generation of young adults overworked and overstressed. Additionally, Rilakkuma hits the sweet spot where his cute brown bear image makes the perfect decoration for things like baby goods and stationery for school kids, while his personality and fun backstory let him cross over into the teen and adult market. Despite these now obvious selling points, initial impressions at San-X were quite mixed. Many thought his character design was a bit too long and limbs too gangly. At that time, kawaii characters usually featured an oversized head with a tiny body. Additionally, early reception by the public was pretty mixed as well. Despite this initial apprehension and sluggish sales, Kando really liked the character and with the support of some other staff at San-X was able to keep Rilakkuma merch going. Eventually, sales started to pick up in 2004, and by 2010 Rilakkuma was ranked 5th most popular character in Japan!
It’s hard to overstate Rilakkuma’s popularity and pervasiveness in Japan. This lazy brown bear is seriously everywhere! The Rilakkuma brand has been featured on more than 16,000 products and by the end of 2016 had revenue of over ¥250 billion! Since 2005, he has had a long-running collaboration with Lawson, a major chain convenience store, being featured on goods and purchase point reward merch. Additionally, Rilakkuma has been the spokes-character for Mr. Donut since 2010 and featured on numerous products from bath soap to golf clubs and even made his appearance in cars commercials!!! There are currently over 15 Rilakkuma stores across Japan and even permanent themed cafes, in addition the temporary pop-ups throughout the year. Rilakkuma also often does collabs with transportation like trains, busses, and even boats (one of my all-time favorite themes is the Yamanote line cross-over). In 2019, Rilakkuma made his TV debut with the stop motion Netflix series Kaoru and Rilakkuma. This series was quite successful and helped introduce Rilakkuma, and San-X, to a larger international audience.
More than 20 years after San-X’s initial foray into adoring stationery with kawaii, they had finally hit gold! This lazy, quirky bear clearly resonated with the mood of the Japanese populace, and sales from in-house goods, licenses, and collaborations launched San-X into a major company capable of competing with the likes of Sanrio. Following this success, San-X streamlined their character launch cycle, focusing only on just 2-3 main series with multiple themes throughout the year, while still rotating in and out new characters to see what sticks. What didn’t change was their commitment to quirky characters with curious personality traits. As with Kogepan and Terapanda and discussed in part 2, San-X characters tend to be somewhat pitiful or helpless as a way to connect and provide a sense of healing or even commissary. Not all characters in the San-X catalog fall into that category, such as Kutsushita Nyanko, a cut black cat in white socks, and Jinbei-San, a friendly whale shark with a gang of underwater friends.. However, the other two most popular series from the last 15 years, Sentimental Circus and Sumikko-Gurashi, clearly continue this trend.
Popular themes from the late 2000s through today: Kutsushita Nyanko, Jinbei-San, Sentimental Circus and Sumikko-Gurashi
Sentimental Circus launched in 2009 and features a motley crew of forgotten and discarded toys who gather at night, after everyone is asleep, to star in their own secret nighttime circus! The main character and ringleader is the rabbit Shappo, whose battered body was sewn together for a stylish patchwork remake. With a mix of vintage 19th circus imagery, luscious color palette of pinks, purples, and reds, and slightly melancholic back story Sentimental Circus really stand out from the overabundance of kawaii characters flooding the market throughout the 2000s. As opposed to Rilakkuma’s lazy passiveness, the characters of Sentimental Circus show resilience and creativity in overcoming such hardship.
San-X’s most recent success since Rilakkuma is Sumikko-Gurashi, which launched in 2012. Loosely translated as ‘life in the corner’, Summiko-Gurashi is a collection of creatures living a ‘quiet and solitary life in the corner’. The main cast of characters includes shirokuma, a polar bear who hates the cold; Penguin?, a penguin who is unsure if he is a penguin (he may just be a kappa…); Tonkatsu, a little piece of leftover fried cutlet (that is 99% bread and 1% meat); and Neko, a timid and anxious cat. Since their debut, the main characters have also been joined by Tokage, a dinosaur who is pretending to be a lizard. There’s also a slew of silly side characters like Ebifurai No Shippo, a leftover tail of a fried shrimp (the red shrimp tale doubles as a snazzy bow!), and Zassou, a weed with a positive attitude. Shy, self-conscious, and not quite sure of their own identities, the main characters of Summiko-Gurashi fit right in with San-X’s trend of somewhat pathetic characters. However, it’s these flaws that make the characters lovable and charming in their own special and unique ways.
Sumikko-Gurashi was designed by Yuri Yokomizu and during her first years at San-X and was based on her notebook doodles from art school her notebook. Yokomizu attended Tama Art University and even studied under Hikaru Suemasa, creator of Tarepanda. While there may have been some doubts over Rilakkuma, there was little hesitation regarding Sumikko-Gurashi. In fact, San-X had so much confidence in this cast of characters, that they even bypassed the usual rounds of market and consumer research to bring them to launch as soon as possible. And their intuition wasn’t wrong, Sumikko-Gurashi has been a huge hit. According to San-X, in 2015 Sumikko-Gurashi accounted for about 30% of sales of their original merchandise and by 2019 sales of Sumikko products were worth about 20 billion yen a year! In 2018, Sumikko-Gurashi was ranked #5 in 2018 on character popularity charts from Bandai, based on surveys of parents of children under 12 in Japan. In addition to goods, product licenses, colabs and cafe, the Sumikko crew has even had 2 box office hits! Their most recent full-length feature film was released in 2021 and opened at #2 for the weekend box office and earned 250 million yen in the first three days!
Movie posters for the two full length feature films starring Sumikko-Gurashi. Sumikko Gurashi The Movie – The Pop-up Book and the Secret Child (left) releases in and won Best Animation of the Year at the Japanese Movie Critics Awards; Sumikko Gurashi The Movie: A Magical Child of the Blue Moonlit Night (right) opened in Fall of 2021 and reached #2 at the weekend box office.
As with Rilakkuma, one of the keys to Sumikko-Gurashi’s success is their cross-generation appeal. Their soft, round shapes and pastel color palette makes the perfect adornment for merchandise targeted for babies and school-age children. However, their unique personalities, each with their own set of foibles, doubts, and quirks make them appealing for teens and adults who find a sense of affinity and healing in these kawaii characters. The unique world of Sumikko-Gurashi also makes for an infinite source for new themes, which always just seem a bit ridiculous, adding to their charm. Additionally, it’s easy to add in a new character to mix things up, and since it’s already so weird, pretty much anything makes sense.
With hits like Rilakkuma, Sentimental Circus, and Sumikko-Gurashi, San-X has dominated the kawaii character market throughout the late 2000s and 2010s. Learning from the success of Terapanda and Kogepan, San-X has continued to create characters with quirky personalities that appeal to the adult market. Combining those traits with cross-generational character design they are able to create characters that appeal to customers of all ages (and of course spends lots of money on!). The popularity of San-X’s quirky and somewhat subversive kawaii didn’t go unnoticed by the execs at Sanrio HQ. Throughout the lost decades, the appeal of their overly sweat brand of kawaii started to wain and even NYTimes lamented the decline of Hello Kitty. Less than a few years after that article, Sanrio debuted Gudetama, a lazy egg yolk with a cute little butt crack. Gudetama’s name is even the contraction of ‘Gude’ from gudegude meaning ‘something lazy and lacking energy’, and tama, the first part of the work for egg (tamago). Now if this isn’t a direct response to the rise of Rilakkuma, I don’t know what is! Gudetama has proved to be hugely successful, even rivaling the success of Kitty-chan in the past few years.
While starting as just a humble stationery company in the 1930s, San-X has risen to be a formidable player in the competitive character goods market. While a somewhat haphazard approach to character creating throughout the 1980s and 1980s, San-X’s nimble and innovative approach allowed them to create characters that tapped into the Japanese psyche (and internationally) and provide a sense of comfort and healing through their unique style of kawaii. One of my favorite quotes from this interview with Yuri Yokomizo and some execs from San-X, loosely translates as ‘Sanrio is the sun, San-X is the moon’ (サンリオがお日さまなら、サンエックスはお月さま). In contrast Sanrio’s bright and cheerful kawaii, the character’s of San-X are all just a little bit weird (ちょっと変), but it is that weirdness that makes them so endearing. With the 10th anniversary of their last flagship character coming up in 2022, I’m even more excited to see what San-X continuous to create and share with this world. After the past few years, we are all definitely in need of some kawaii healing power!
