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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Joe McCormick and it's Saturday, so we are

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Speaker 1: heading into the vault for an older episode of the show.

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Speaker 1: This is the first part of the series that Rob

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Speaker 1: and I did last year on the Urukiara Japanese mascots.

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Speaker 1: This originally published July ninth, twenty twenty four. Enjoy Welcome

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Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb and.

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Speaker 1: I am Joe McCormick. And today on Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind, we're going to be starting a series, probably

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Speaker 1: a couple of episodes on a cultural phenomenon, the wobbly

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Speaker 1: mascots of Japan known as Urukiara. Rob, what got you

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Speaker 1: interested in Urukiara?

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Speaker 2: Well, my family we recently visited Japan and it was

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Speaker 2: an amazing experience, highly recommended, you know, full of culinary, historic, natural, cultural,

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Speaker 2: and pop culture discoveries. We tried to cover just about

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Speaker 2: everything during our time there, from you know, Shinto shrines

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Speaker 2: and historic landmarks to Ghibli Park, the Tokyo Pokemon Center,

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Speaker 2: and you know, as with any visit to another country

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Speaker 2: and another culture. There's so much fun and wondered to

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Speaker 2: be had in the little things. And I think one

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Speaker 2: of our favorite pastimes, especially as we traveled around in

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Speaker 2: the country and especially as we use public transportation, was

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Speaker 2: the endless parade of these curious mascots, these uru kiyara,

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Speaker 2: and it was just, you know, every time we would

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Speaker 2: encounter another one, we were like, oh, look look at

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Speaker 2: this little one. We've got to and we have to

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Speaker 2: research it, you know, bust out our phones. Once we

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Speaker 2: were able to find ourselves seated or stationary on the train,

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Speaker 2: figure out who this individual is, what they represent, it

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Speaker 2: was a great deal of additional fun.

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Speaker 1: Now we'll go into a lot more detail about what

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Speaker 1: urukyara are in the forms they take in these episodes,

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Speaker 1: but generally they are characters that can appear in the

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Speaker 1: form of two D representations like drawings or also in

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Speaker 1: costumed embodied form. Were you mostly just seeing them like

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Speaker 1: on signs and in media and stuff, or did you

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Speaker 1: actually come across physically costumed erukiyara.

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Speaker 2: Sadly, we never encountered any physically costumed mascot character as kiara. Mostly,

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Speaker 2: I mean exclusively, we're encountering them on informational signs sometimes

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Speaker 2: you know, promotional material and so forth, and very rarely

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Speaker 2: on merchandise. I didn't encounter a lot of them that

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Speaker 2: were heavily merged, though some of them are as we'll discuss.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, it was like oftentimes would be like in

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Speaker 2: the midst of going from point A to point BE

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Speaker 2: and momentarily being distracted, but also momentarily being you know,

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Speaker 2: getting an emotional boost from seeing one of these little

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Speaker 2: cute characters and you know, and figuring out what they're

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Speaker 2: trying to say to you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So, oh, it's a pair of bipedal sentient Japanese

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Speaker 1: leaks who are talking about the agricultural products of this prefecture.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, so yu Kyara have garnered a fair amount

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Speaker 2: of attention internationally already. I imagine many of you are

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Speaker 2: more than aware of them. I believe John Oliver did

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Speaker 2: a piece on them many years ago, and it has

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Speaker 2: continued to revisit the topic over the years. But for

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Speaker 2: those of you who are new to the concept, you

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Speaker 2: can basically start with the Western concept of a mascot character,

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Speaker 2: say a Ronald McDonald, you know, like there's an example

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Speaker 2: Ronald McDonald and his team of McDonald's mascots. They're sometimes

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Speaker 2: physical and costume or makeup form. They're oftentimes illustrative, sometime downplayed,

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Speaker 2: sometimes you know, exaggerated, but they're there and they represent

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Speaker 2: the brand. Then you have things like what the Starbucks

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Speaker 2: siren with with the double tail. You know, I don't

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Speaker 2: you know, I have never seen anyone dressed up as

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Speaker 2: that an official capacity for Starbucks, but it's very much

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Speaker 2: a part of the brand and you recognize it, like, Okay,

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Speaker 2: there it is. It's a creature, but it doesn't have

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Speaker 2: much personality, but you could say it's sort of a mascot.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I think the Starbucks Mermaid and Ronald McDonald are

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Speaker 1: a good comparison, except a couple of differences with most Eurokura.

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Speaker 1: I think they tend to be more shaped like pillows

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Speaker 1: than either of those characters, where Ronald McDonald and the

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Speaker 1: Starbucks Mermaid are more kind of humanoid like leaner more

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Speaker 1: humanoid representations most Erucuara, though there's some variation between them,

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Speaker 1: most of them are more like a large, walking plushy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like Grimace of the McDonald's crew would be a

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Speaker 2: better example. He would fit the mold more of the

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Speaker 2: euro Kiara, as would I would say the Michelin Man.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, or the stay Puffed marshmallow Man exactly yes.

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Speaker 1: But another thing is that both of those are corporate mascots,

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Speaker 1: and so we're familiar with like corporate mascots in America,

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Speaker 1: like sports team mascots. But imagine if a broader range

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Speaker 1: of cultural institutions and objects could have mascots. So you

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Speaker 1: can have a mascot for a town, a mascot for

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Speaker 1: a region, a mascot for a piece of public infrastructure,

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Speaker 1: a mascot for an agricultural product.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's where it instantly begins to become my

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Speaker 2: obvious I think to do to guideen and Westerners that

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Speaker 2: you realize, oh, well, a chemical company that is not

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Speaker 2: marketing anything towards children will have one of these, as

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Speaker 2: will like the local sewage treatment plant. So it's it

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Speaker 2: runs in directions you might not expect. And then you

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Speaker 2: find or if I have found anyway sort of digging

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Speaker 2: into it, then there are there are like corporate companies

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Speaker 2: that you I'd expect to have gotten into it that

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Speaker 2: seemingly haven't, like, as far as I can tell, Pilot Pins,

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Speaker 2: the Pilot Corporation based in Japan. They have no uru

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Speaker 2: kiara that I can tell. Maybe I just couldn't find them.

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Speaker 2: But then so not every company company is getting in

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Speaker 2: on this, and it is it seems like it's more

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Speaker 2: often that you do find them in various city or

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Speaker 2: prefecture associated organizations. All right, So what does this word

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Speaker 2: mean euro kiara? It's actually fairly complex to break down

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Speaker 2: as a translation. One paper I was looking out for

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Speaker 2: this as a twenty sixteen paper called who is Hikonyan

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Speaker 2: The Phenomenon of Japanese Eurokiara by Jillian Ray Sutter, this

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Speaker 2: twenty sixteen publication, and they point out that the term

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Speaker 2: here is short for the code mixed uru mascot character,

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Speaker 2: So you already know what mascot character is and that

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Speaker 2: just becomes kiaru. But the uru here may be translated

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Speaker 2: as loose, easy, lazy, careless, half hearted, or lenient, according

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Speaker 2: to Sutter. And I've also seen lax and soft invoked

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Speaker 2: in translation as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so I did a little digging on this word yurui,

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Speaker 1: which is spelled usually in English why you are you I?

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Speaker 1: And it seems to have some different clusters of connotations.

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Speaker 1: So Japanese speakers right in and correct me if I'm

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Speaker 1: getting anything wrong here, but I'm doing my best to

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Speaker 1: figure out all the different to untangle all this. It

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Speaker 1: seems like it literally means loose, slack, or soft, but

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Speaker 1: when applied to a person or creature, indicates something like relaxed,

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Speaker 1: chilled out, laid back, or lazy. So I think in

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Speaker 1: this facet of the words, meaning the dude from The

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Speaker 1: Big Lebowski would be a type of yurui. But it

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Speaker 1: would also seem to apply to characters that are more gentle,

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Speaker 1: light hearted, sweet, and non threatening. So something that is

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Speaker 1: yurui maybe has some overlap with cuteness, but is also

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Speaker 1: like no big deal. Also, an academic essay that I'm

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Speaker 1: going to cite later in this episode translates yurukiara as

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Speaker 1: wobbly characters, and that brings in another aspect of them.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if wobbliness is itself at all implied

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Speaker 1: by yurui, but the author who coined this term originally

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Speaker 1: specified that an important thing about them is that they

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Speaker 1: have sort of like awkward or unstable movements. I think

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Speaker 1: that's a key part of their cuteness appeal. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: I don't know if we really have a term in

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Speaker 1: English that connects all these different connotations that I'm seeing

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Speaker 1: with yurui. But the way I understand it is that

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Speaker 1: these yurui characters are They're soft, they're easy going, they're

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Speaker 1: a little bit awkward, they're cute, they're non threatening, and

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Speaker 1: they are not telling you to hurry up and get

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Speaker 1: those spreadsheets finished. They're they're just hanging out.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's that's pretty accurate from what I've

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Speaker 2: read and what i've seen. And the interesting thing is, though,

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Speaker 2: even though they are very lax and very chill, and

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Speaker 2: they might be doing nothing more than just being that

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Speaker 2: representing this company or this you know, public works department,

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Speaker 2: but also they can and sometimes are invoked in situations

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Speaker 2: or or in causes that are serious, but they keep

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Speaker 2: that laxness. So I'll get a specific example of this

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Speaker 2: in the second episode. We do. But it's like your

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Speaker 2: particular mascot may be like, Hey, I'm just being chill,

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Speaker 2: I'm vibing, I'm cute and approachable, but try not to

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Speaker 2: fall in the train tracks.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, let me remind you about public health precautions,

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Speaker 1: but in a very non threatening, chilled out way.

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Speaker 2: Exactly now, they are pretty much without exception cute. I

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Speaker 2: think if you look around there are so any of them.

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Speaker 2: As we'll get into there, there's basically an unknown number

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Speaker 2: of them, and there's not uniform quality. Most of them

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Speaker 2: are amazing, but some of them there have been occasionally

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Speaker 2: one or two that I've seen where it's like, I

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Speaker 2: don't know that this concept is really working. Maybe they

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Speaker 2: should have workshopped this a little bit more, But they

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Speaker 2: are pretty much without exception cute, and therefore I think

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Speaker 2: they're a fine example of the larger Japanese concept of

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Speaker 2: cuteness kauai and its various subsets.

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Speaker 1: Rob, I don't know if you came across the same thing,

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Speaker 1: but there are a few that I almost understood to

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Speaker 1: be considered cute in the way that they fail to

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Speaker 1: be cute, that they're like something that is understood as

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Speaker 1: an attempt to be cute that is unsuccessful and is

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Speaker 1: in fact ugly, which itself is cute.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about. And this

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Speaker 2: might actually relate to some of the subsets of kauai

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Speaker 2: that I find pretty interesting, Like, for instance, there there

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Speaker 2: is or was I'm not sure if this term is

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Speaker 2: still relevant, but Kauai noir, which is dark cute, so

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Speaker 2: it's creepy cute, and therefore sometimes it may feel like

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Speaker 2: it's like falling short of true cuteness, or the mask

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Speaker 2: of cuteness is slipping away from horror.

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Speaker 1: One of the academic essays I was reading about Urkiara

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Speaker 1: talked about this concept of gross cute. It's a type

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Speaker 1: of cuteness in Japanese culture that didn't apply to any

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Speaker 1: particular URQR, but to other bear characters in cartoons specifically,

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Speaker 1: I think like a rotting zombie bear.

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Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, yeah, there was one called angry Bear.

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Speaker 2: I think I remember this was years and years ago,

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Speaker 2: that is like an actual bear and he ends up

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Speaker 2: mauling the cute human characters in his vicinity because he's

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Speaker 2: an actual bear. But there's yeah, there's this other area

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Speaker 2: that I believe is referred to as pitiful cute, and

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Speaker 2: I think there is also some sort of level of

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Speaker 2: crossover in Japanese language between pitiful and cute that maybe

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Speaker 2: doesn't like they're too separate in English and maybe they're

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Speaker 2: more connected in Japanese. It's my loose understanding, but you

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Speaker 2: have this hit aful cute area that I think arguably

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Speaker 2: includes such examples as Goodi Tama the Lazy Egg, which

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Speaker 2: I know a number of you are familiar with now

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Speaker 2: because he's really blown up and has his own Netflix series.

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Speaker 2: He's amazing. And then there's this other character that I

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Speaker 2: only discovered while in Japan, and this is a Panchu Yusagi.

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Speaker 2: She is like a little pink rabbit in like old

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Speaker 2: Granny underpants, and I think her name basically means like

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Speaker 2: Pamper's rabbit. And she goes about trying to do things

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Speaker 2: that are sweet and cute and have like sweet, cute,

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Speaker 2: meaningful experiences, generally in like two panel cartoons, and something

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Speaker 2: goes wrong, and so there is kind of this. She

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Speaker 2: often looks kind of weird in the second panel because

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Speaker 2: she's either embarrassed or she's angry expectations have not met

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Speaker 2: up with reality.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you shared this with with JJ and me, and

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Speaker 1: I thought this was really funny. It seems like they're

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Speaker 1: often centered around but like an awkward social misunderstanding. Like

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Speaker 1: there was one comic US shared with somebody waving and

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Speaker 1: then this character waving back at them, but then it's

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Speaker 1: clear that the original character was waving for a cab.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that sort of thing and it's really good,

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Speaker 2: and you don't most of it has no language associated

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Speaker 2: with it, so you can, you know, look it up

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Speaker 2: on Instagram and plow through them, which is what I did.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I also, I want to stress I also

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Speaker 2: did things like I saw Mount Fuji while I was there,

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Speaker 2: but I mostly end up talking about things like this.

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Speaker 1: Oh but wait, doesn't the Mount Fuji region have its

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Speaker 1: own mascot?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, yeah, and I'll definitely come back to that. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: anywhere you go there, there's there's some sort of it

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Speaker 2: basically comes down to like how visible are they going

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Speaker 2: to be? You know, how many posters and so forth.

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Speaker 2: But I want to come back to just the concept

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Speaker 2: of cuteness and kwai and broader detail here, because I

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Speaker 2: think it is key. It's one of the key sort

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Speaker 2: of tripod legs or even like table legs to understanding

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Speaker 2: this whole concept. And I was looking around for a

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Speaker 2: good source on this, and I found an article on

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Speaker 2: Ian magazine titled The Great Regression by Tokyo based translator,

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Speaker 2: writer and speaker Matt Alt, who also co wrote a

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Speaker 2: trio of very fun books on Yo Kai Yuri and

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Speaker 2: Ninja's which two of those I've read with my son

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Speaker 2: and the other one I have on the shelf ready

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Speaker 2: to go, in addition to other books dealing with Japanese

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Speaker 2: culture that he's pinned over the years. And so this

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Speaker 2: article in general is a very good read. It deals

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Speaker 2: with this idea that there's like this larger trend in

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Speaker 2: the world of adults taking an interest in things associated

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Speaker 2: with childhood, arguably when they should not be, which I

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Speaker 2: want to stress here is a not a concept that

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Speaker 2: I feel one hundred percent okay with. It's just kind

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Speaker 2: of like a judgment call of how grown up spend

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Speaker 2: their lives and make their choices.

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Speaker 1: Well, yeah, we could take normative judgments out of it

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Speaker 1: and just talk about the phenomenon that it does seem

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Speaker 1: like there's been a clear trend, I think in the

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Speaker 1: last couple of decades, at least in my knowledge in

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Speaker 1: the US context of uh more, of a tendency for

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Speaker 1: adults living adult lives to engage with say media men

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Speaker 1: for children, I mean, especially like you know, nostalgic media

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Speaker 1: that they liked when they were kids, and you know,

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Speaker 1: you can ask an interesting questions about like what drives

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Speaker 1: that kind of that kind of interest.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I want to stress that that that

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Speaker 2: the alt article here is very good and is ultimately

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Speaker 2: not trying to grind an act in that direction. But uh,

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Speaker 2: but my my sort of gut response to just the

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Speaker 2: concept of it is like, I end up, you know,

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Speaker 2: going back to that that old C. S. Lewis quote.

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Speaker 2: You know, when I became a man, I put away

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Speaker 2: childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire

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Speaker 2: to be very grown up. You know, because like ultimately,

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Speaker 2: like what are adults supposed to be doing? You know,

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Speaker 2: you get into that whole question, and and and also

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Speaker 2: like the unreality of the idea that that in the

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Speaker 2: old days adults didn't do things like play games or

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Speaker 2: craft you know, fiction for children and so forth.

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Speaker 1: I feel like the most childish thing one could actually

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Speaker 1: say is like, you know, that's for babies. I'm not

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Speaker 1: a baby. Yeah, yeah, nothing makes you sound more like

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Speaker 1: a baby.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So, anyway, in this article all lays out this idea,

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Speaker 2: this concept that many people in the contemporary Western world

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Speaker 2: have entered into a kind of global second childhood in

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Speaker 2: response to various social, economic, and global health factors over

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Speaker 2: the last decade or two, and this is wrapped up

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Speaker 2: in the whole idea. They're like the Great Regression, And

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Speaker 2: in this the idea is that has arguably occurred in

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Speaker 2: Japan during the nineties quote, when the youth and young

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Speaker 2: adults of a hyper connected post industrial society lose faith

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Speaker 2: in the future, the Great regression is inevitable. And I

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Speaker 2: have to admit. And he points out as well that

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Speaker 2: this sounds grim and again I personally feel a certain

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Speaker 2: amount of resistance to the idea. But he goes on

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Speaker 2: in an interesting direction here, arguing that this large scale

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Speaker 2: cultural interest in the things of childhood can be in

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Speaker 2: that positive and that this is where it gets into

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Speaker 2: the mindset that I can connect with alt Wrights. Quote.

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Speaker 2: Under the right circumstances, regression can nourish. It can be

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Speaker 2: a form of progression, a form of experimentation and creative play.

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Speaker 2: It can pave the way for new ways of thinking

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Speaker 2: and living. It can spawn new trends and identities and lifestyles.

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Speaker 2: These become essential tools for navigating the strange new frontiers

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Speaker 2: of modern life, and as we adopt them, they transform

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Speaker 2: our definition of what it means to lead healthy adult lives.

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Speaker 2: So the historic underpinning here is that is Alt lays

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Speaker 2: out Japan's post war economy was extremely ascended from the

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventies through roughly nineteen ninety one, and was even

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Speaker 2: expected to overtake the US economy, something that ended up

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Speaker 2: being echoed and warped in contemporary, certainly American culture at

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Speaker 2: the time, even in racist and hateful ways, up to

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Speaker 2: and including acts of physical violence. And it's also in

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Speaker 2: other ways, like you see it referenced in the sci

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Speaker 2: fi tapestries of you know, futuristic cyberpunk visions. You know,

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Speaker 2: this idea that the future there's something about the future

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Speaker 2: that will be predominantly Japanese, that sort of thing, and

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Speaker 2: you still see that in sort of like retro futuristic

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Speaker 2: cyberpunk visions. It like just becomes sort of baked in

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Speaker 2: to the concept and into the world building. But then

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Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety one, there's this economic burst. People coped

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Speaker 2: or didn't as best they could, and there was this

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Speaker 2: kind of slide away from the capitalist pursuit of the salarymen,

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Speaker 2: you know, the stereotypical you know, employee worker that's out

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Speaker 2: there just really busting it. And then you know, at

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Speaker 2: the end of the day, you know, you have a

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Speaker 2: few beers, and then you go to sleep, and you

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Speaker 2: wake up and you do it all again. And there

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Speaker 2: was a slide away from all of that into interest

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Speaker 2: that were previously more niche. And this all brings us

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Speaker 2: to kuai. Quote. Salarymen may have built Japan ink, but

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Speaker 2: when it crumbled, young people picked up the pieces. The

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Speaker 2: real trendsetters were young women, ranging from schoolgirls to office ladies,

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Speaker 2: the female counterparts of the salarymen. They began unabashedly incorporating

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Speaker 2: symbols of feminine childhood into their adult identities, upending entire

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Speaker 2: industries through the power of kuai, a Japanese word that

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Speaker 2: overlaps with cuteness, but which is also a state of

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Speaker 2: mind that refers to being adorable, playful, just begging for cuddles,

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Speaker 2: like a kitten or a baby. By nineteen ninety two,

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Speaker 2: One Woman's magazine anointed kauwai the most widely used, widely

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Speaker 2: loved habitual word in modern living Japanese.

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Speaker 1: So it's a kind of fascination, especially beginning with younger

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Speaker 1: women in Japan, but sort of taking over the whole

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Speaker 1: culture in a way and becoming a very economically important concept.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and one that even though you know, there's

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Speaker 2: a load about kuwai that's distinctly Japanese, and you know

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Speaker 2: we're already talking and we'll continue to talk about that,

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Speaker 2: but obviously it's also something that anyone can look at

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Speaker 2: and feel connection to, you know, it's ultimately it has

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Speaker 2: universal appeal. So anyway, all goes on to argument. While

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Speaker 2: critics love to see all of this, either in Japan

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Speaker 2: or elsewhere, as a moral failure, as an inward escape

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Speaker 2: into fantasy, he stresses that it's much more than that,

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Speaker 2: and in the example of Japanese pop culture, it didn't

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Speaker 2: just result in an endlessen we're inward gays, but also

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Speaker 2: resulted in new modes of social change, adaptation to changing times,

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Speaker 2: and the advancement of whole industries. So anyway, it's a

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Speaker 2: great article we're checking out in full. But I think

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Speaker 2: the key things to keep in mind for our purposes

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Speaker 2: here are that number one, there was a hyper charging

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Speaker 2: of kauwhai in Japanese culture during the nineteen nineties. And

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Speaker 2: again too, it doesn't occur in a bubble, but it

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Speaker 2: also isn't a bubble, if that makes sense, Like this

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Speaker 2: doesn't mean that there was nothing cute prior to that.

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Speaker 2: I mean, to the contrary, there was this strong element

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Speaker 2: of cuteness appreciation of like small deck or objects and

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Speaker 2: so forth in Japan, and this was like just a

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Speaker 2: hyper charging of that. And you can also point to

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Speaker 2: examples like Hello Kitty, one of the ambassadors of kawai

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Speaker 2: dates back to seventy five. And you know, as we've

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Speaker 2: discussed in the show before, you have this long standing

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Speaker 2: Japanese fascination with house cats, and cats feature very strongly

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Speaker 2: into various forms of kauwai, and also kawai as manifested

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Speaker 2: in Japanese handwriting goes back to the seventies and so forth,

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Speaker 2: and I think you can make similar observations about this.

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Speaker 2: You know, the ideas of regression over here. You know,

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Speaker 2: people were pointing out, oh you have you have adults

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Speaker 2: with no children going to Disney World, adults with no

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Speaker 2: children buying lego sets. You know, these are things that

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Speaker 2: pre existed any observations of widespread regression by decades, So

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Speaker 2: you know, none of this is coming out of nowhere.

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Speaker 1: I think it's hard to deny the appeal of legos

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Speaker 1: to anyone, the way they snap together that's just good.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. My son and I just built an ornithopter.

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Speaker 2: It was it was challenging and rewarding. Anyway, coming back

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Speaker 2: to urukiara again, it's just essential that these are not

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Speaker 2: just aimed at kids. They're representing a wide range of

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Speaker 2: regional governments or governmental agencies and all sorts of different businesses,

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Speaker 2: but not all businesses. For instance, I ran across one

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Speaker 2: very adorable pig urukiara that is a pink pig, very

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Speaker 2: cute inside of like bubbles, like he's covered from bubbles,

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Speaker 2: like he just got out of a bubble bath. His

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Speaker 2: name is Awabutta, and he is the mascot of Eagle

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Speaker 2: Star Chemicals. So it's companies, you know like that. I

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Speaker 2: don't know anything about Egle Star Chemicals, but I'm assuming

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Speaker 2: that they are not, you know, particularly like child oriented

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Speaker 2: in their marketing and so forth. But they have this

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Speaker 2: adorable mascot.

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Speaker 1: Why is the pig surrounded in bubbles? Oh no, this

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Speaker 1: is not a pig that's dissolving in a vat of

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Speaker 1: Why is it. No, he's happy, he's cute. Okay, it's

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Speaker 1: a happy pig. It does look happy, does not look

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Speaker 1: to be dissolving.

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Speaker 2: Now, as we've pointed out, these mascots, these zero kiara

404
00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:11,440
Speaker 2: often are personified and brought into physical reality via a costume.

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Speaker 2: And as Eddie y L Chang points out in the

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Speaker 2: twenty eighteen article, let the euro Kiara do the job,

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Speaker 2: they essentially have the life of a celebrity spokesperson. They

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Speaker 2: make public appearances again in suit form. They participate in

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Speaker 2: charity and outreach initiatives. And I have to read this

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Speaker 2: passage from Cheng's article. This was published in the Japanese

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Speaker 2: studies journal Mira, and this is brilliant quote. Urukiara do

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Speaker 2: not just have a realistic profile and job. Part of

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Speaker 2: their public relations work involves them having a life. For instance,

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Speaker 2: and he refers to a picture in the article. In Fig.

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Speaker 2: Seven we see Rinkachan from Katsuragi City in Nara Prefecture,

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Speaker 2: quote unquote falling for Sinto Kun and baked a cake

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Speaker 2: for him for his second birthday in an attempt to

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Speaker 2: win his heart and become his girlfriend. It is striking

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Speaker 2: that this was reported in the Nara kise Shimbun business newspaper,

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Speaker 2: an indication that yurukiara are considered by people as social

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Speaker 2: members in a world where the line between reality and

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Speaker 2: fantasy is often unclear. And I need to stress that

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Speaker 2: Sinto Kun is a young boy with deer antlers because

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Speaker 2: Nara is known for its it's deer and Rinkachan is

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Speaker 2: like a cartoon princess. And this is news of this

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Speaker 2: not even engagement but possible girlfriend boyfriend scenario was published

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Speaker 2: in what I can only imagine would be like if

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00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 2: there's a Wall Street Journal article about it in the US.

429
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:44,800
Speaker 2: Uh huh.

430
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:47,280
Speaker 1: Santo Kun, by the way, I should point out, is

431
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 1: one of the mascots that I had read described as

432
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:54,639
Speaker 1: ugly and acute. Way, according to some people, it is

433
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:58,480
Speaker 1: just a bold boy with antlers. Apparently some people find

434
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:01,080
Speaker 1: the antlers off putting, but in a way that actually

435
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:03,440
Speaker 1: comes full circle and makes it cute.

436
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:05,159
Speaker 2: I would agree with that. I think that was the

437
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 2: roller coaster I went on when I first glimpsed him,

438
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:10,399
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't know, okay, okay, it's cute.

439
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:13,480
Speaker 2: By the way, if you really want to like supercharge

440
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 2: your knowledge of what these various UK area look like,

441
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 2: I highly recommend checking out the Instagram feed for Mondo mascots.

442
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:25,680
Speaker 2: You can get hit by new ones every day. It's

443
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:29,679
Speaker 2: a wonderful experience, especially if you are not in Japan

444
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 2: where you can encounter them in the wild. Now, one

445
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:36,639
Speaker 2: thing that Sutter points out in her article that referenced

446
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:39,960
Speaker 2: earlier is that, yeah, these mascots are not only far

447
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:43,159
Speaker 2: more popular, but they're compared to say, US mascots, but

448
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:46,480
Speaker 2: they're also far more numerous, and indeed their full number

449
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 2: is probably uncountable and potentially out of control, something that

450
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 2: has been a topic of some concern. I don't know

451
00:25:54,560 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 2: how ultimately how concerned you can get about mascots getting

452
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:01,360
Speaker 2: out of control, but it has been on on everyone's

453
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:02,160
Speaker 2: radar for a bit.

454
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 1: I'm going to go out on a limb and say

455
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 1: I'm not worried about it.

456
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:10,920
Speaker 2: Well, they didn't. There are some details that everyone has

457
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:12,920
Speaker 2: to take into account here. But she decides a twenty

458
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 2: fifteen story in The Guardian detailing a move by the

459
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 2: government of Osaka to cut down on the number of

460
00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:23,480
Speaker 2: mascots in Osaka government offices because this apparent and ultimately

461
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:26,160
Speaker 2: this ended up resulting in there cutting down from something

462
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 2: like ninety two to sixty nine mascots in twenty fifteen.

463
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 2: I don't know if that held, if they've been able

464
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 2: to hold it at sixty nine or if that has

465
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:38,640
Speaker 2: gone up again. And according to Bloomberg, that same year,

466
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 2: the Japanese government announced a nationwide crackdown on yurokiara from

467
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 2: a cost cutting standpoint. So again, it's not the idea

468
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 2: that people were saying, you know, I don't think that

469
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:55,119
Speaker 2: the Kashiwa City sewerd Apartment needs its own mascot, though

470
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 2: it does or had one named Rinko Chan a lotus

471
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:03,200
Speaker 2: ferry riding on Ali. It's not that they that that,

472
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:06,640
Speaker 2: you know, politicians and government workers were saying, we can't

473
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 2: have things like cute things like this in life. They

474
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:11,679
Speaker 2: were just saying, you know, it's costing too much money. Uh,

475
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:13,879
Speaker 2: you know someone has to design them. If if you

476
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:16,000
Speaker 2: have a suit, someone has to wear that suit. If

477
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,639
Speaker 2: you're printing up a bunch of promotional materials with that character,

478
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:21,520
Speaker 2: well then you know that's an added cost. And you know,

479
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:24,200
Speaker 2: some of the estimates that I've read with particular mascots,

480
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:26,199
Speaker 2: it was like it was getting pretty pricey, and I

481
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:28,920
Speaker 2: get it, like, imagine if for stuff to blow your mind.

482
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:32,160
Speaker 2: We decided, okay, not only do we need our own

483
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:36,800
Speaker 2: eurokiarra for the show, but we need separate Eurokiara for

484
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:40,400
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema for each of our Wednesday short form shows.

485
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 2: Listener Mail needs one. We need a vault centric Eurokiara.

486
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:47,600
Speaker 2: It would be a bit much, and I could understand

487
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:52,640
Speaker 2: our corporate masters being a little resistant to the addition

488
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 2: of an additional four to five mascots.

489
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 1: Okay, here's what it is, a super Kowhi rendering of

490
00:27:59,359 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 1: Christoph Limb bear. But the old man version from the

491
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 1: beginning of Pilot er two just make it cute somehow.

492
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:12,159
Speaker 2: I can imagine it. I can imagine, but I can

493
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:14,920
Speaker 2: also imagine what it was that Lambar Productions being.

494
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 1: A little week ago.

495
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh well there. Yeah, is there a way you

496
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:22,000
Speaker 2: could animize it, like by thirty five percent?

497
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:25,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he would be He would have Lamb characteristics,

498
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 1: little tiny like buds of ram horns.

499
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 2: Maybe hmmm, okay, and then you have ramires and maybe

500
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 2: he's a bear. Hmmm.

501
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:35,440
Speaker 1: I don't know we're getting there.

502
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 2: So anyway, I you know it is. As a guidgen tourist,

503
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 2: for my part, I never got tired of seeing this

504
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 2: endless parade of cute mascots. But I could see where

505
00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 2: the prize could get out of hand. But on the

506
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 2: other side of the issue, I can you know, I see,

507
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 2: I realized not only my own enthusiasm, but I've also

508
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 2: seen this reference in various articles dealing with him, talking

509
00:28:57,640 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 2: about how they've really caught on not only with you

510
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 2: and these residents, but also with tourists, also becoming instrumental

511
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 2: in international relations. So, you know, I wonder if it's

512
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 2: something that while they maybe do the cost cutting, if

513
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 2: it's something they could lean into even more from like

514
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 2: a tourism standpoint, you know, you know, like a kind

515
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 2: of like a bird watcher's guide, but just for Eurookiaga.

516
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: Oh well, the way I understood it, especially some of

517
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 1: the like regional township mascots were specifically, at least in part,

518
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 1: aimed at attracting tourists.

519
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 2: Oh definitely. Yeah, there are ones that are associated with

520
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 2: directly with tourism. But it's like, I don't want to

521
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 2: just know about the tourism related ones. I want to

522
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 2: know about the sewage departments. You know, they're all so interesting.

523
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 2: I want to catch them all.

524
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 1: And there have been attempts to reckon with the multitudes

525
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:49,719
Speaker 1: of mascots because I don't know if they're doing it

526
00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 1: in the most recent years, but for a while there

527
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: they were holding in Japan a Eurokiara Grand Prix.

528
00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 2: That's right. This began in twenty eleven as a way

529
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 2: to specifically to help revitalize various regions in Japan by

530
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 2: highlighting their mascots, and it featured like a really cool

531
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 2: website which is still around. You can look up in

532
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 2: lots of mascot pictures, and participants could vote online for

533
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 2: their favorites in both a regional and a business division.

534
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 2: But by twenty twenty apparently, I think the last one

535
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 2: was in twenty twenty, because it was deemed that this

536
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 2: had just become too competitive with competing regions and or

537
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 2: companies lobbying like super hard to get those online votes,

538
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 2: and it was just decided I'm not sure exactly who

539
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:38,320
Speaker 2: decided this, but it was decided that, you know what,

540
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 2: this is betraying the spirit of what these characters should be,

541
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 2: and we're just not going to do it anymore.

542
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:45,720
Speaker 1: I feel like if it were taken too seriously, it

543
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: would not be yurui.

544
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 2: That's right. It's supposed to be laid back, it's supposed

545
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 2: to be lax and ultimately, yeah, It's like, if you're

546
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 2: if you're putting all this effort into getting votes, you know,

547
00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 2: that's not laid back. If you're spending you know, close

548
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 2: to a million on your lax character, I don't know

549
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 2: how lax they are anymore, you know, So I guess

550
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:16,959
Speaker 2: we have to take that into consideration with these criticisms.

551
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: Now, where does this cultural concept come from? The term urukya?

552
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: Most of the sources I was looking at give credit

553
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 1: to a Japanese manga author and I think sort of

554
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 1: social critic and essayist named June Mura, who coined the

555
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: term urukyara in I've actually seen different years cited for this.

556
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: An essay that I'm going to get into in just

557
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: a bit pins it in the year two thousand and four.

558
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: But according to Mura, there are three characteristics that define

559
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 1: a urukyura. The one we've already mentioned is the concept

560
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: of urui, which has these connotations of like soft, loose, relaxed,

561
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:03,800
Speaker 1: laid back, weak, gentle, non threatening, no big deal. The

562
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 1: second characteristic is a strong sense of love or passion

563
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:11,320
Speaker 1: for the home region that they represent, and then third

564
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 1: is awkward, wobbly, strange, unique or unstable movements and that

565
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 1: seems like a very specific kind of criterion, But maybe

566
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 1: later in this series we'll come back to that and

567
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: zero in on the unstable movements, because I think that

568
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: is a more psychologically important criterion than one might assume

569
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 1: at first. An interesting thing about these criteria is that

570
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 1: they sort of implied that the character must have an

571
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 1: embodied form. So a lot of times these mascots only

572
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: appear as as drawings, as two dimensional representations, but it

573
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 1: implies that they must at some point move right to

574
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: have these strange, unstable movements, And so I think this

575
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: does connect to the fact that most of these characters

576
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 1: do have an embodied form or at some time in

577
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:02,960
Speaker 1: place a human inside a suit. But anyway, I think

578
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 1: it would be useful to just look at a few

579
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: examples of Rukyr that stick out to us.

580
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I want to start with one that

581
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 2: that ties into what we were talking about earlier about

582
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 2: tourism and both domestic and international, because the one I

583
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 2: want to highlight first is ultimately a pretty simple one.

584
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 2: This is not a complex or super weird one, but

585
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 2: one that that my family fell in love with rather quickly.

586
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 2: His name is Hako Geo and He is the mascot

587
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 2: of Hakone Geo Park. So Hakone is a beautiful mountain

588
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 2: area with sometimes views of Mount Fuji. It kind of

589
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 2: depends on you on where exactly you are in what

590
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:42,360
Speaker 2: the clouds are doing, because it's it's a shy mountain.

591
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:45,720
Speaker 2: Sometimes well, luckily we got we got a little peak

592
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 2: there at the peak, but you're not guaranteed that with

593
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 2: Mount Fuji. But anyway, it's full of This region is

594
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 2: full of natural hot springs. It has some fun museums.

595
00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 2: The ways to get around are amazing because you have,

596
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 2: of course, you know, great trains, but then cable cars, gondolas,

597
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 2: pirate ships are part of the public transportation system there

598
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 2: to get across, criss crossing this lake there, and there's

599
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 2: in so much more. There are restaurants and so forth

600
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:17,080
Speaker 2: is the fourth It's a beautiful area and every step

601
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:20,719
Speaker 2: of the way we saw signage with Hako Geo there

602
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 2: to tell us what we were doing right, where to

603
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 2: go and how much we should be enjoying Halkone And

604
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 2: he does occasionally take physical form in a costume, but

605
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 2: we did not see him in such form. It was

606
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 2: not one of those days. Okay, So the design of

607
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:39,400
Speaker 2: this character is nothing to elaborate. It is just a

608
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 2: cute person. I'm not sure if it's a boy or what.

609
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:49,120
Speaker 2: They're very cartoony, just a bright, glorious face. They're so happy.

610
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 2: And this person is wearing a hat shaped like the

611
00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 2: mountains of Halkoni, like three peaks, a bigger one in

612
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:57,839
Speaker 2: the center, and it's just still amazing. I just felt

613
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:01,400
Speaker 2: the looseness every time I looked at him. I was

614
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:03,320
Speaker 2: a little surprised that there wasn't a lot of merch

615
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:06,280
Speaker 2: for this guy, because by the end of our brief

616
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 2: study in Hakone like I wanted more. I was like, yes,

617
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 2: let me have a shot at the Hagajiyo merch, but

618
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:14,759
Speaker 2: it didn't seem to be. There was barely any of it.

619
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:18,400
Speaker 2: But of course this is not the case with every Eurokiara.

620
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 2: Some of them are merchandise superstars.

621
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:25,400
Speaker 1: That's right. So if you know Rob and I, you

622
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:27,480
Speaker 1: probably know that we're going to be drawn to some

623
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:31,400
Speaker 1: of the weirder and more obscure mascots as we highlight

624
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:34,000
Speaker 1: some more in the next episode or two. But we

625
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 1: should definitely mention the heavy hitters as well, and one

626
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:41,279
Speaker 1: of the most famous Eurokiara in Japan and around the

627
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 1: world is Kumaman, which is a mascot created in the

628
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 1: year two thousand and nine to represent the Kumamoto Prefecture

629
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 1: of western Kshu and to boost local products, spur trade

630
00:35:55,960 --> 00:36:00,120
Speaker 1: and attract tourists. This character was debuted after at the

631
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:03,239
Speaker 1: same time that a high speed rail line connecting the

632
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:06,960
Speaker 1: region was completed in the year twenty eleven. I believe

633
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:09,239
Speaker 1: now I will get to a source in just a

634
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:12,719
Speaker 1: minute that disputes the essential nature of what I'm about

635
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 1: to describe, But I have to start just by reporting

636
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 1: my own perception and first impression looking at Kumaman, and

637
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 1: that is that Kumaman looks like an adorable bipedal black bear,

638
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:28,800
Speaker 1: sort of pear shaped in the body, with a white muzzle,

639
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 1: large eyes with curious curved brows, sort of arched eyebrows

640
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:38,360
Speaker 1: over them, and prominent bright red cherry cheeks. Kumaman was

641
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:41,719
Speaker 1: the winner of the eurokiar A Grand Prix in twenty eleven.

642
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 1: I think that was the first year they had the competition,

643
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 1: So he's a big early winner and incredibly popular.

644
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely adorable, looking, very huggable, just yeah, phenomenally cute

645
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 2: and reassuring, very soft. Yeah. Yeah.

646
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:01,799
Speaker 1: Now, like many Urukiura, momman plays a big role in

647
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:06,479
Speaker 1: marketing and advertising for a particular region. In this case, again,

648
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:11,280
Speaker 1: the Kumamoto Prefecture and Kumaman in particular has been judged

649
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 1: a huge success at this goal. I was reading an

650
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 1: I Triple E paper by Nakasato and Tanaka about using

651
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: machine image analysis to predict the popularity of these mascots.

652
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:25,720
Speaker 1: By the way, the results of that was that people

653
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:30,360
Speaker 1: seem to like bright colors, especially on the yellow green spectrum,

654
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:32,800
Speaker 1: so bright yellow greens seem to be the most popular.

655
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:35,759
Speaker 1: But Kumaman, of course, is an exception. Anyway, In the

656
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:39,040
Speaker 1: intro of this article, they just happened to summarize a

657
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:44,160
Speaker 1: Japanese news article which included a figure from the Kumamoto

658
00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 1: branch of the Bank of Japan estimating that Kumaman alone

659
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:52,200
Speaker 1: had generated one hundred and twenty four billion Japanese yen

660
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: worth of economic activity just in the two year period

661
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:59,080
Speaker 1: from twenty eleven to twenty twelve. I tried to look

662
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:01,760
Speaker 1: up a conversion rate, and that's something like seven hundred

663
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:04,320
Speaker 1: and seventy million US dollars today. Don't know what that

664
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 1: would have been in twenty twelve. But yeah, so this

665
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:12,799
Speaker 1: is a big business, an adorable creature, a beautiful, incredibly

666
00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 1: cute design, a cultural phenomenon, but also a big money maker.

667
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:20,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't argue with those figures. No matter how

668
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 2: much it costs to design it or make the costume,

669
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 2: this guy paid off. Now.

670
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 1: The likeness of this character is used in all different

671
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:30,839
Speaker 1: kinds of marketing contexts. Seems to he seems to pop

672
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:34,120
Speaker 1: up in you know, photos, like in a costume with

673
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:37,719
Speaker 1: a beautiful natural landscape behind him, like hey, you know,

674
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 1: come visit Kumamoto Prefecture, but also appears on the packaging

675
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 1: of products and so forth. But some uses of this

676
00:38:46,680 --> 00:38:52,160
Speaker 1: character go hard, and go hard, almost into bizarre territory.

677
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 1: One example is I found an article from twenty sixteen

678
00:38:55,680 --> 00:39:01,320
Speaker 1: about a recent promotion for Kumamoto tourism which involved filling

679
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 1: a hall in Osaka station with dozens and dozens of

680
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:09,880
Speaker 1: kumaman representations of various sorts. Some are three dimensional models,

681
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 1: some are two D cutouts like you know, cardboard stands.

682
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:17,960
Speaker 1: Some are banners that hang from light posts. One is

683
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: a giant, just a giant kumaman head that has like

684
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:26,480
Speaker 1: spotlights aimed at it curiously a lot of these representations

685
00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:30,040
Speaker 1: have little variations on the character. So one is wearing

686
00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:33,319
Speaker 1: a pink scarf, one is holding an apple, one has

687
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 1: its eyes closed, usually they're wide open, So these strange

688
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:42,319
Speaker 1: little variations, and all of these images are of this

689
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 1: same excruciatingly cute bear like organism. But the way they're

690
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,480
Speaker 1: lined up in these columns stretching down the hall, it's

691
00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:51,520
Speaker 1: almost like you are looking at a bunch of storm

692
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:54,759
Speaker 1: troopers standing at attention on the Death Star. It's a

693
00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:58,320
Speaker 1: bit menacing, and from what I can tell, Rob, I

694
00:39:58,360 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 1: don't know if you picked up on the same thing.

695
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 1: It seems like some cultural uses of yurukiara seem to

696
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:06,000
Speaker 1: embrace this kind of irony.

697
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:08,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know when I look at it, there's certainly

698
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 2: the feeling of like, okay, an army of kumaman's are

699
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:14,560
Speaker 2: here for me. But also it's like, well, kumaman he

700
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 2: represents the way I want to feel. And now they're

701
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 2: all of them here, and they all have different expressions,

702
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 2: different emotional states. And I realized that maybe I'm not

703
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:27,799
Speaker 2: one person either, Maybe I'm multiple people just spread out

704
00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 2: across time, and that there's no there's no definite identity

705
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:35,160
Speaker 2: or reality. I don't know that that was their intention.

706
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, so another strange, ironic use of Kumaman. I was

707
00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 1: not aware of this meme when it popped up, but apparently,

708
00:40:44,200 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 1: sometime around twenty eleven, this adorable, rosy cheeked bear became

709
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:50,759
Speaker 1: the subject of a minor meme in which he was

710
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 1: depicted in front of something that's on fire, and the

711
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 1: text was always for the glory of Satan.

712
00:40:57,080 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 2: Of course, now this was not an official usage.

713
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:04,239
Speaker 1: Memes on the Internet, and in fact, I want to

714
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:07,120
Speaker 1: turn into an essay that in one part does address

715
00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 1: perplexity of people over why Kumaman is used in this meme.

716
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 1: So I was trying to learn more about Kumaman and

717
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 1: I came across a fascinating essay on this character and

718
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:23,920
Speaker 1: on the broader Rokyr phenomenon. It was called Kumaman Japan's

719
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:29,280
Speaker 1: surprisingly Cheeky Mascot by Debor j Ochi in a book

720
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:34,040
Speaker 1: called Introducing Japanese Popular Culture published twenty twenty three by Rutledge.

721
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 1: This book is edited by a professor of Japanese literature

722
00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 1: at the University of Oregon named Elisa Friedman. But again

723
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:43,840
Speaker 1: the essay is by Debor j Ochi. So I'm not

724
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 1: going to have time to get into everything the author

725
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 1: brings up in this article, but I'll go through and

726
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,799
Speaker 1: hit some highlights that I thought were interesting. One is

727
00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:55,480
Speaker 1: about the literal origin of this character. So Kumaman began

728
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:59,200
Speaker 1: as part of a regional advertising and pr campaign called

729
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:03,960
Speaker 1: Uoto's Surprise, the goal of which was to give Kumamoto

730
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:07,359
Speaker 1: residents a new sense of local pride and to sort

731
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:10,840
Speaker 1: of delight tourists and visitors with what Kumamoto had to

732
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:14,640
Speaker 1: offer in terms of natural landscapes and local cuisine. And

733
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 1: the story goes that originally, a Kumamoto born designer named

734
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:21,920
Speaker 1: Koyama Kundo set out to design a logo just on

735
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:26,279
Speaker 1: the theme of Kumamoto Surprise, but his art director, who

736
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 1: was named Mizuno Manabu, included as a surprise this new character, Kumaman,

737
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:37,400
Speaker 1: which allegedly went through three thousand draft variations before he

738
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 1: reached his final form. That's how the story goes. I

739
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:43,000
Speaker 1: don't know, three thousand drafts, what do you think I mean?

740
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:44,760
Speaker 2: That's it's lots of evolution right there.

741
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, oh yeah, all the generations. But what I've

742
00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 1: already described him looks like a black bear with a

743
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:57,239
Speaker 1: very cute face, a wide eyes, kind of curious expression,

744
00:42:57,320 --> 00:43:01,399
Speaker 1: the red rosy circles on the cheeks. But what were

745
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 1: the visual influences on Kumaman? According to this essay, the

746
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:11,560
Speaker 1: creators have cited Santa Claus and a New York Yankees

747
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 1: baseball player named Matsui Hideki. I initially found this somewhat perplexing,

748
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 1: but it makes more sense the more I thought about it.

749
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:23,239
Speaker 1: So I will say that Santa sort of has the

750
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 1: Kumaman build. And what all three sharing common is prominent cheeks.

751
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 1: So Santa Claus is often depicted with rosy red cheeks.

752
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:37,080
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about baseball, so I was not

753
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:39,120
Speaker 1: familiar with this player. But I looked up pictures of

754
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: Matsui Hideki, and the essay doesn't make this connection, but

755
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: I noticed he has in some pictures where he's got

756
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:49,919
Speaker 1: a leaner physique, he has very prominent cheek bones, and

757
00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:52,719
Speaker 1: in other pictures where he's older, he has just a

758
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:58,000
Speaker 1: very very like cute, you know, cute prominent cheeks.

759
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean I look at him and I'm like, okay, yeah,

760
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:06,319
Speaker 2: hands on baseball player, prominent cheek bones. But it's hard

761
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:08,800
Speaker 2: for me to imagine the transition from this plus Santa

762
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:14,200
Speaker 2: Claus to equal Kumuman. But I believe it. I'll accept it.

763
00:44:14,239 --> 00:44:16,040
Speaker 1: Should we take a moment to say anything about the

764
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 1: role of Santa in Japanese culture, Like, despite the mostly

765
00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:23,520
Speaker 1: non Christian context, a number of people in Japan do

766
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:26,440
Speaker 1: observe Christmas in some way, not as a religious holiday,

767
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 1: but just as a kind of a fun cultural holiday.

768
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 1: And there is some role for Santa Claus in Japanese

769
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: culture or Santa San.

770
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:39,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, Santa has proved to be an export in

771
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 2: some ways. I mean Japanese Christmas traditions also include Kentucky

772
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:47,840
Speaker 2: Fried Chicken, which is its own whole story. But I

773
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 2: haven't researched Japanese Santa cultural a lot. I've looked into

774
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 2: Chinese embrace of Santa in the past, where he ended

775
00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 2: up like basically entering the Chinese popular mindset during the

776
00:44:59,600 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 2: ninety and ended up playing a saxophone due to associations

777
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:05,839
Speaker 2: with Bill Clinton playing a saxophone. Probably, Uh, these are

778
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 2: things that often happen like without you know, they just happen,

779
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 2: and you don't know how an idea is going to

780
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:13,960
Speaker 2: move from one culture to the next. What it's going

781
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:16,279
Speaker 2: to drag with it, and then when it gets over there,

782
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 2: you know where what kind of form it's going to

783
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:21,799
Speaker 2: take up and take on, either temporarily or permanently. You know,

784
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:25,360
Speaker 2: as as you know, something comes over from another culture

785
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:29,239
Speaker 2: and whatever's novel about it may be accepted, you know.

786
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:31,440
Speaker 2: And then there's also how does it fit into pre

787
00:45:31,520 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 2: existing values and ideas, you know, where does it sort

788
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,919
Speaker 2: of like naturally fit and and so forth and so forth.

789
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 2: So I imagine there's a fair amount of that going

790
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:44,239
Speaker 2: on with Santa being brought in. We've talked in the

791
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:48,439
Speaker 2: past two about how in like in Chinese traditions, there

792
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 2: are these ideas of Chinese and mortals, you know that

793
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:55,560
Speaker 2: in some ways like remind me of Santa Claus. You know,

794
00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:57,480
Speaker 2: the idea that it's an old man with a beard

795
00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 2: that lives at the North Pole, and some you know,

796
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:04,040
Speaker 2: translations of and understanding of the story, and so you're like, wow,

797
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:06,279
Speaker 2: this kind of sounds like Santa Claus to me. So

798
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:08,680
Speaker 2: I don't know all sorts of things like this I

799
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:12,720
Speaker 2: think end up occurring when one cultural motif is brought

800
00:46:12,760 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 2: over into another.

801
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 1: I think you can also think about some cross cultural

802
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 1: similarities and characters like that, not necessarily as even having

803
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 1: influenced one another editing point, but there are just some

804
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 1: character types that are kind of easy for the mind

805
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: to get to. Yeah, and a lot of cultures will

806
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:31,840
Speaker 1: come up with characters with some similar characteristics.

807
00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:36,959
Speaker 2: I think it gets to the appeal in general of Eurokiara, though,

808
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 2: because these are all individuals that you can look at

809
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:42,960
Speaker 2: one and you don't need to know like how their

810
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 2: design came together. You don't need to know what they represent,

811
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:49,040
Speaker 2: if anything. You don't have to know like what corporation

812
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:52,520
Speaker 2: or prefecture they're associated with, but you just instantly get

813
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 2: why they're appealing. There's something about them that transcends all

814
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 2: language and cultural understanding, and you're like, yes, yes, come

815
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 2: into my life. You know. There's so many characters like

816
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:06,560
Speaker 2: that in pop culture general.

817
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 1: Ochi in this essay mentions another possible influence on the

818
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,520
Speaker 1: design of Kumaman, which is that he is thought in

819
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:26,839
Speaker 1: some ways to resemble a sort of local stereotype of

820
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:31,399
Speaker 1: the Qshu man, who is described as stocky, tough, and

821
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 1: subject to turbulent emotions. So I'm not sure I understand

822
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:40,440
Speaker 1: this sort of intra Japanese stereotype perfectly, but I'm interpreting

823
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 1: it in the same way that we have regional stereotype

824
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:45,719
Speaker 1: characters in America, like you know, the forget about It

825
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:49,319
Speaker 1: New York man or the you know, the barbecue Texas man,

826
00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 1: that kind of thing.

827
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:53,120
Speaker 2: Okay, And so if you like, took this stereotype and

828
00:47:53,160 --> 00:47:55,480
Speaker 2: then made it cute, and then he used it to

829
00:47:55,520 --> 00:47:58,400
Speaker 2: represent the region, which you know that it sounds more

830
00:47:58,400 --> 00:48:00,319
Speaker 2: appealing the more I think about it, because you take

831
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:02,239
Speaker 2: that which on some level and I don't know to

832
00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 2: what degree they were doing this on any level with

833
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 2: this particular Japanese scenario, but you could imagine part of

834
00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:09,600
Speaker 2: it being, well, let's take this thing that might be

835
00:48:09,600 --> 00:48:12,839
Speaker 2: a little intimidating and we make it cute, you know,

836
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 2: we pull the fangs from it, and we turn it

837
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:18,400
Speaker 2: around and make it something that ultimatelyions up attracting people.

838
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 1: Yes, but you know, there's another way that the cuteness

839
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:25,759
Speaker 1: of these characters can be deceiving, because it seems to

840
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:28,640
Speaker 1: me that certainly with Kumaman, and I think with many

841
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:30,920
Speaker 1: of these other mascots that we'll get to in the

842
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:35,120
Speaker 1: next episode. The more you dig, the more layers of

843
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:41,280
Speaker 1: intended symbolic meaning and cultural reference seem to emerge. For example,

844
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 1: according to this essay, the the red rosy circles on

845
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:48,840
Speaker 1: Kubaman's cheeks. Ochi says that the red circles symbolize that

846
00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 1: Kumamoto is also known as the land of Fire, and

847
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:55,799
Speaker 1: they are also supposed to be a reference to the

848
00:48:55,840 --> 00:48:59,640
Speaker 1: mark of a particular feudal lord of Kumamoto during the

849
00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:04,680
Speaker 1: token Goa Shogunate. And then also they are reminiscent of

850
00:49:04,719 --> 00:49:08,040
Speaker 1: the he Knu maru or the sun circle the rising Sun,

851
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:11,640
Speaker 1: which is used on the Japanese flag. And the essay

852
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:15,000
Speaker 1: points out that these red circle cheeks appear on other

853
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:17,719
Speaker 1: Japanese characters, such as Pokemon's Pikachu.

854
00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:20,680
Speaker 2: That's right, yeah, now that you mention it, Pikachu has

855
00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 2: those notable red spots. And then you've mentioned another one here, Opp'nman,

856
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:27,440
Speaker 2: who I was not familiar with, but I looked up

857
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:31,640
Speaker 2: pictures of this superhero ish character, and he has like

858
00:49:31,680 --> 00:49:34,359
Speaker 2: a big rosy red nose and then two big red

859
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:38,320
Speaker 2: rosy cheeks, so his face is highlighted by three big

860
00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:39,560
Speaker 2: rosy red circles.

861
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:44,040
Speaker 1: So anyway, I mentioned earlier that Kumaman is a big business,

862
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:47,600
Speaker 1: and this is true. Kumaman not only exists as a

863
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:50,880
Speaker 1: mascot promoting Kumamoto and its products, but also as a

864
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 1: motif in a type of consumer item known as fun chiguzu,

865
00:49:56,600 --> 00:49:59,239
Speaker 1: which is a term derived in part from English meaning

866
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:02,480
Speaker 1: fancy go woods. And in the essays words these are

867
00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:07,400
Speaker 1: quote small cute decorative personal items often marketed to young women,

868
00:50:08,239 --> 00:50:11,960
Speaker 1: and an example given is Hello Kiddy merchandise. So some

869
00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:15,759
Speaker 1: of these characters, especially Kumaman, have been popular not just

870
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:19,480
Speaker 1: in promotions, but as imagery in themselves, sought after for

871
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:25,200
Speaker 1: their own value in the form of like cute decorative nickknacks. Now, Rob,

872
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:28,239
Speaker 1: you brought this up earlier that your kiara are not

873
00:50:28,360 --> 00:50:32,759
Speaker 1: just visual images or likenesses, but characters, and their creators

874
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 1: give them narratives, backgrounds, and personalities. You brought up the

875
00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:40,239
Speaker 1: I think the romance between two different mascots, so they

876
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:43,360
Speaker 1: have like histories and hobbies and preferences. I came across

877
00:50:43,400 --> 00:50:45,880
Speaker 1: references to at least one mascot that was said to

878
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 1: be a fan of heavy metal music, and maybe we'll

879
00:50:50,480 --> 00:50:53,520
Speaker 1: get back to that in a subsequent part here. But

880
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:56,600
Speaker 1: the author of the essay mentions several things about Kumaman's bio.

881
00:50:56,640 --> 00:51:00,000
Speaker 1: In particular, so they say his birthday is March twelfth,

882
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:03,479
Speaker 1: and he is five years old. I don't know if

883
00:51:03,520 --> 00:51:07,320
Speaker 1: he ages or if he is perpetually five years old.

884
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:12,880
Speaker 1: I mentioned his arched eyebrows, which I initially interpreted as curious,

885
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:16,279
Speaker 1: but another way of raading them is surprised, and in

886
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:19,480
Speaker 1: this way he connects to the theme of Kumamoto surprise.

887
00:51:19,960 --> 00:51:22,839
Speaker 1: The creators do say that he is male, though this

888
00:51:22,920 --> 00:51:27,040
Speaker 1: is specified quote in the human not animal sense.

889
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:27,680
Speaker 2: Okay.

890
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 1: They say he is curious and loves playful mischief, and

891
00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:35,080
Speaker 1: so an example of the playful mischief is that sometimes

892
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:38,440
Speaker 1: at public events, when he's in costume form, he will

893
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:43,000
Speaker 1: show off strange behavior that seems to baffle his human handlers.

894
00:51:43,080 --> 00:51:46,080
Speaker 1: One example given is that he will sit down on

895
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:47,840
Speaker 1: the ground when it's time to dance.

896
00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:51,399
Speaker 2: Well, and that makes sense too when you get into

897
00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 2: the fact that ultimately these mascots are going to be

898
00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:57,319
Speaker 2: portrayed by a person in a costume, and then it

899
00:51:57,320 --> 00:51:59,799
Speaker 2: becomes a performance hard then it becomes a basic like

900
00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:05,279
Speaker 2: silent clowning routine, and therefore, like some of the basics

901
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:08,080
Speaker 2: of entertaining costume work. Are you going to be in

902
00:52:08,120 --> 00:52:09,359
Speaker 2: play now?

903
00:52:09,360 --> 00:52:11,439
Speaker 1: One thing that I thought was interesting that this essay

904
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 1: gets into is that often urukiara do speak, but from

905
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:19,800
Speaker 1: what Ochi says, at least in the context of Kumaman,

906
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:23,560
Speaker 1: they don't speak in person in the embodied form, so

907
00:52:23,600 --> 00:52:26,600
Speaker 1: the person in the costume is never going to make

908
00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:30,160
Speaker 1: a statement out loud, but the character may have their

909
00:52:30,200 --> 00:52:34,399
Speaker 1: words appear in print or be spoken for by an

910
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:38,320
Speaker 1: attendant spokesperson. And I thought that was kind of interesting

911
00:52:38,360 --> 00:52:43,719
Speaker 1: because it reminded me of other characters. Specifically, I was

912
00:52:43,760 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: thinking of silent protagonists in video games, and examples of

913
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:52,320
Speaker 1: this would be characters like Mario or Link from Legend

914
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:56,040
Speaker 1: of Zelda, or Gordon Freeman in the Half Life games,

915
00:52:56,840 --> 00:53:00,839
Speaker 1: the protagonist of the Portal games. These are characters that

916
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:04,799
Speaker 1: we never hear speak, at least not in sentences. We

917
00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:08,440
Speaker 1: might hear little exclamations or noises or single words, you know,

918
00:53:08,520 --> 00:53:12,359
Speaker 1: Mario might say yahoo or a little thing, but will

919
00:53:12,360 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 1: not like make a full statement. And these characters are

920
00:53:16,719 --> 00:53:21,440
Speaker 1: usually not understood to actually be mute within the storylines

921
00:53:21,480 --> 00:53:24,200
Speaker 1: of the games in which they appear. The way I've

922
00:53:24,200 --> 00:53:28,560
Speaker 1: always understood it is that within the story they can speak,

923
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:32,160
Speaker 1: and the other characters have heard them speak and sometimes

924
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 1: react to them as if they are speaking in the moment,

925
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:38,880
Speaker 1: but we do not hear them speak out loud ourselves.

926
00:53:39,400 --> 00:53:42,280
Speaker 1: And this seems to have some kind of magical relationship

927
00:53:42,600 --> 00:53:45,640
Speaker 1: to the fact that when we're playing the game we

928
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:49,719
Speaker 1: are them. Some kind of magic would be broken if

929
00:53:49,760 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 1: we heard their voice speaking full coherent sentences, And so

930
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:55,880
Speaker 1: that seemed in some ways parallel to the idea of

931
00:53:55,920 --> 00:53:59,120
Speaker 1: that like with Kumaman, you're not going to hear the

932
00:53:59,440 --> 00:54:03,400
Speaker 1: person in the suit speaking as Kumaman, but Kumaman is

933
00:54:03,520 --> 00:54:06,200
Speaker 1: understand understood to be able to speak. It's just that,

934
00:54:06,280 --> 00:54:08,480
Speaker 1: like words will only appear in print or something.

935
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:10,960
Speaker 2: And I think that is that is a key difference

936
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:13,760
Speaker 2: from some of the Western counterparts that you might compare

937
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:18,279
Speaker 2: them to, like Grimace talks, Ronald McDonald talks. You know,

938
00:54:18,440 --> 00:54:21,319
Speaker 2: the Starbucks Mermaid doesn't talk, but the Starbucks Mermaid doesn't

939
00:54:21,320 --> 00:54:21,840
Speaker 2: do anything.

940
00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:25,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I wonder if a difference here is that

941
00:54:25,719 --> 00:54:31,120
Speaker 1: these mascots often represent localities or polities of some kind,

942
00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:35,719
Speaker 1: and so there are lots of people who are passively

943
00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:38,600
Speaker 1: being represented by them in some ways. So you know,

944
00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:41,600
Speaker 1: you sort of like are Kumaman if you are a

945
00:54:41,680 --> 00:54:45,200
Speaker 1: Kumamoto resident as sort of the avatar of your region.

946
00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:47,759
Speaker 1: So I wonder if there's a similar logic at work

947
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:50,640
Speaker 1: that kind of prevents them from speaking in person, even

948
00:54:50,680 --> 00:54:53,840
Speaker 1: if they can be understood to have personalities in the

949
00:54:53,880 --> 00:54:56,840
Speaker 1: power of speech, just only being able to give quotes

950
00:54:56,840 --> 00:54:57,280
Speaker 1: in print.

951
00:54:57,640 --> 00:54:59,080
Speaker 2: I think that's a great point because some of these

952
00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:02,839
Speaker 2: images you included in our notes of Kuman in his

953
00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:08,040
Speaker 2: natural habitat like he looks like I want to feel

954
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:11,200
Speaker 2: if I go there, you know, And I think that's intended.

955
00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:15,440
Speaker 2: So there's that aspect to it for sure, like he

956
00:55:16,320 --> 00:55:18,480
Speaker 2: represents that it would and it would destroy the magic

957
00:55:18,480 --> 00:55:20,239
Speaker 2: if he spoke. And I guess also you could add

958
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:24,880
Speaker 2: maybe two that the various physical suit performances. I have

959
00:55:25,040 --> 00:55:28,839
Speaker 2: seen footage of of these various mascots. There's a kind

960
00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:31,200
Speaker 2: of shyness to them that is part of the cute factor.

961
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:34,680
Speaker 2: You know. Sometimes they're peeking from behind doorways or you know,

962
00:55:34,760 --> 00:55:37,640
Speaker 2: around corners at you. They're being a little shy, and

963
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:40,719
Speaker 2: that's part of their cuddliness. You know, like if they

964
00:55:40,719 --> 00:55:42,880
Speaker 2: were chasing you down, it would not be the same vibe.

965
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:47,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, there's a bunch of stuff about Kumaman that

966
00:55:47,200 --> 00:55:49,040
Speaker 1: I would like to get into, but I might save

967
00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:52,000
Speaker 1: some of it for part two, especially if we start

968
00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:58,279
Speaker 1: talking about connections between these characters and Yokai. But one

969
00:55:58,360 --> 00:56:01,040
Speaker 1: last thing I wanted to get to talking about Kumaman

970
00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:04,560
Speaker 1: right now is one of my favorite parts of this essay.

971
00:56:05,160 --> 00:56:08,960
Speaker 1: It is the insistence that, despite appearances, Kumaman is not

972
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:13,400
Speaker 1: a bear. What Okay, he looks like a bear to me,

973
00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:15,759
Speaker 1: So what is he? Is he some kind some other

974
00:56:15,880 --> 00:56:18,759
Speaker 1: kind of animal that just looks like a bear. And

975
00:56:18,920 --> 00:56:22,760
Speaker 1: here I just have to simply read from Ochi's essay.

976
00:56:23,280 --> 00:56:26,560
Speaker 1: The answer makes reference to the concept of kigarumi, which

977
00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:29,600
Speaker 1: means costumed character. So a kigarumi is a person in

978
00:56:29,600 --> 00:56:34,520
Speaker 1: a costume, Ochi writes, quote, Another misconception about Kumaman is

979
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:37,400
Speaker 1: that he is a bear, the animal he most resembles.

980
00:56:37,719 --> 00:56:41,120
Speaker 1: When I contacted Kumamoto Prefecture to use his image in

981
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:44,200
Speaker 1: my chapter, I was told that any such statements must

982
00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:48,920
Speaker 1: be removed. Most Japanese people, along with foreign and domestic media,

983
00:56:48,960 --> 00:56:52,360
Speaker 1: say Kumaman is a bear and are surprised to learn otherwise.

984
00:56:52,760 --> 00:56:56,200
Speaker 1: Perhaps this reminds readers of the wildly popular news story

985
00:56:56,200 --> 00:57:00,680
Speaker 1: of August twenty fourteen, in which Sanrio insisted that Hello,

986
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:02,320
Speaker 1: Kitty is not a cat.

987
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:02,959
Speaker 2: Yep.

988
00:57:03,120 --> 00:57:06,320
Speaker 1: I remember that The paragraph goes on, not only is

989
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:09,319
Speaker 1: Kumaman not a bear, he is not a human in

990
00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:12,279
Speaker 1: a fuzzy suit. As I was told by the Kumamoto

991
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:16,320
Speaker 1: brand promotion office quote, the Kumaman you see in the

992
00:57:16,320 --> 00:57:20,200
Speaker 1: real world is not a kigaroomy. The thing you see

993
00:57:20,600 --> 00:57:22,040
Speaker 1: is his flesh and blood.

994
00:57:22,400 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 2: Wow.

995
00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:27,840
Speaker 1: So I this really got the gears going. So they're

996
00:57:27,920 --> 00:57:32,120
Speaker 1: not denying that the Kumaman costume looks like a bear.

997
00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:36,840
Speaker 1: They are denying that it is a costume, but it

998
00:57:36,920 --> 00:57:39,000
Speaker 1: is also not a real bear.

999
00:57:40,120 --> 00:57:43,480
Speaker 2: Hmmm. Yeah. And this I guess they're kind of like

1000
00:57:43,600 --> 00:57:47,680
Speaker 2: leaning into this kind of like on reality. This this

1001
00:57:48,280 --> 00:57:51,200
Speaker 2: this third case. You know, it's like it's it's it's

1002
00:57:51,200 --> 00:57:53,320
Speaker 2: almost like it's a supernatural being. Like you would say

1003
00:57:53,360 --> 00:57:55,680
Speaker 2: that like getting into the world of Yokai, which we'll

1004
00:57:55,720 --> 00:57:57,720
Speaker 2: get into more in the next episode. It's like saying, well,

1005
00:57:57,720 --> 00:58:00,680
Speaker 2: a kappa is not a turtle and it's not a man.

1006
00:58:01,280 --> 00:58:03,160
Speaker 2: It is and it would be wrong to say it's

1007
00:58:03,160 --> 00:58:05,680
Speaker 2: a hybrid of the two, either it is its own thing, yeah,

1008
00:58:05,680 --> 00:58:09,080
Speaker 2: and and yeah, oh boy, this is Yeah, it gets

1009
00:58:09,080 --> 00:58:11,640
Speaker 2: into I wonder if part of this, too, is like

1010
00:58:11,920 --> 00:58:16,760
Speaker 2: a Western impulse to need to strictly classify everything, like

1011
00:58:16,800 --> 00:58:20,320
Speaker 2: we need to know, you know, what species this particular

1012
00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:24,160
Speaker 2: mythological creature is without stopping to remind yourselves that it

1013
00:58:24,240 --> 00:58:27,600
Speaker 2: exists in myth and therefore it has special classification.

1014
00:58:28,040 --> 00:58:31,240
Speaker 1: Well, I was thinking about it in another way, which

1015
00:58:31,280 --> 00:58:34,680
Speaker 1: is that if you ask the question is Kumaman a bear?

1016
00:58:35,880 --> 00:58:39,040
Speaker 1: You could mean sort of two different things by that question.

1017
00:58:39,200 --> 00:58:43,280
Speaker 1: One is is a bear what it is supposed to resemble?

1018
00:58:44,120 --> 00:58:47,280
Speaker 1: And the other is a sort of literal or reductive question,

1019
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:51,520
Speaker 1: like are you currently playing along with the game? So

1020
00:58:51,920 --> 00:58:55,480
Speaker 1: we have you know, normally, if a person in a

1021
00:58:55,520 --> 00:58:58,920
Speaker 1: costume or a cartoon representation of an animal, if I'm

1022
00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:01,440
Speaker 1: thinking about that, there are two possible ways to think

1023
00:59:01,480 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 1: about it. Either I'm playing along, which involves accepting the

1024
00:59:05,720 --> 00:59:09,480
Speaker 1: thing as the thing it resembles or represents, So a

1025
00:59:09,520 --> 00:59:13,200
Speaker 1: cartoon cat is a cat if I'm playing along, Or

1026
00:59:14,400 --> 00:59:18,560
Speaker 1: there's being reductive, which would be taking a literal, objective

1027
00:59:18,600 --> 00:59:22,240
Speaker 1: perspective and saying no, it's pixels. On a screen that

1028
00:59:22,320 --> 00:59:25,480
Speaker 1: are intended to look like a cat, or in the

1029
00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:27,840
Speaker 1: case of a person in a suit, it is a

1030
00:59:27,960 --> 00:59:30,720
Speaker 1: human being inside a suit that is supposed to look

1031
00:59:30,760 --> 00:59:33,560
Speaker 1: like a bear, and this is neither one. It's like

1032
00:59:33,720 --> 00:59:37,000
Speaker 1: they are still asking you to play along. They're saying no, no, no,

1033
00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:39,880
Speaker 1: we're not being literal and reductive that it's a human

1034
00:59:39,920 --> 00:59:42,919
Speaker 1: inside a suit. What it actually objectively is we're still

1035
00:59:42,960 --> 00:59:46,040
Speaker 1: playing the game, but we're not asking you to see

1036
00:59:46,040 --> 00:59:49,040
Speaker 1: the character as the thing. It looks like it is

1037
00:59:49,200 --> 00:59:52,560
Speaker 1: only what it is on the outside. No questions about

1038
00:59:52,560 --> 00:59:53,400
Speaker 1: what's underneath.

1039
00:59:54,160 --> 00:59:56,640
Speaker 2: Okay. It's kind of like the concept of KFE and

1040
00:59:56,680 --> 00:59:59,280
Speaker 2: pro wrestling. Then I guess it's like if you were

1041
00:59:59,280 --> 01:00:01,600
Speaker 2: to ask about, I don't know, the Undertaker and you

1042
01:00:01,640 --> 01:00:04,280
Speaker 2: were to say, well, was the Undertaker a zombie? No,

1043
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:07,439
Speaker 2: he's not a zombie. Is the Undertaker like a guy

1044
01:00:07,480 --> 01:00:10,560
Speaker 2: from Texas pretending to be a zombie? No, he's not

1045
01:00:10,600 --> 01:00:13,480
Speaker 2: that either, He's this other thing. He's got to like

1046
01:00:13,520 --> 01:00:16,080
Speaker 2: approach it. You got to play the game, like you say,

1047
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:19,600
Speaker 2: he is what he is, Yeah, he is as presented.

1048
01:00:21,080 --> 01:00:23,120
Speaker 1: So I thought that was like worthy of a symbiotics

1049
01:00:23,200 --> 01:00:26,680
Speaker 1: lecture or something. Interesting. I'm going to keep thinking on that.

1050
01:00:28,000 --> 01:00:28,200
Speaker 2: Oh.

1051
01:00:28,520 --> 01:00:30,360
Speaker 1: One very last thing I want to get to before

1052
01:00:30,440 --> 01:00:33,200
Speaker 1: we wrap up for today is there is a section

1053
01:00:33,280 --> 01:00:36,280
Speaker 1: of this essay where people are just trying to make

1054
01:00:36,320 --> 01:00:39,720
Speaker 1: sense of why kumaman is being used in the for

1055
01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:44,320
Speaker 1: the Glory of Satan memes. Now, I don't really know.

1056
01:00:44,440 --> 01:00:46,600
Speaker 1: I wasn't familiar with these memes back in the day.

1057
01:00:47,240 --> 01:00:50,000
Speaker 1: I didn't make them, obviously, but I if I had

1058
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:52,200
Speaker 1: to guess, I would just think it's the irony. It's

1059
01:00:52,240 --> 01:00:55,520
Speaker 1: just like, he's cute, and thus it's funny to make

1060
01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:59,520
Speaker 1: a cute thing say something that is, you know, menacing

1061
01:00:59,600 --> 01:00:59,840
Speaker 1: or sin.

1062
01:01:00,440 --> 01:01:03,280
Speaker 2: Yeah. The juxposition is just like the Elmo you know,

1063
01:01:03,360 --> 01:01:04,120
Speaker 2: hell fire thing.

1064
01:01:04,200 --> 01:01:08,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. One thing mentioned here is a Japanese news

1065
01:01:08,560 --> 01:01:11,479
Speaker 1: report that's trying to make sense of the meme and

1066
01:01:11,920 --> 01:01:15,200
Speaker 1: says and they speculate that it may have dimmed from

1067
01:01:15,240 --> 01:01:19,200
Speaker 1: the similarity between the word kumaman and the word in

1068
01:01:19,280 --> 01:01:25,800
Speaker 1: English demon or the names of specific demons in Christianity

1069
01:01:26,200 --> 01:01:31,120
Speaker 1: mammon or ammon uh, and that I don't know. That

1070
01:01:31,160 --> 01:01:33,120
Speaker 1: just seemed like, I don't think that's what it is,

1071
01:01:33,160 --> 01:01:35,560
Speaker 1: but it's funny because that's the same kind of logic

1072
01:01:35,640 --> 01:01:38,439
Speaker 1: we sometimes employed, and we're like trying to figure out

1073
01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:41,800
Speaker 1: why something, why a cultural connection is made. It's like,

1074
01:01:41,840 --> 01:01:44,440
Speaker 1: maybe it has to do with these sound alike words,

1075
01:01:44,480 --> 01:01:46,600
Speaker 1: but like it, I really don't think that's it.

1076
01:01:46,960 --> 01:01:49,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Mammon thing came to my mind when we

1077
01:01:49,840 --> 01:01:52,640
Speaker 2: were talking about the hell fire thing earlier. But then

1078
01:01:52,680 --> 01:01:55,080
Speaker 2: I like, it's like it can't be it on a

1079
01:01:55,080 --> 01:01:57,600
Speaker 2: mainstream level, Like that's that's more of a like a

1080
01:01:57,640 --> 01:02:02,480
Speaker 2: deeper demonology cut that surely wasn't part of the decision

1081
01:02:02,480 --> 01:02:03,960
Speaker 2: making process. And it is me.

1082
01:02:04,480 --> 01:02:07,240
Speaker 1: But then apparently this same news report speculated in the

1083
01:02:07,280 --> 01:02:10,720
Speaker 1: other half that the answer is what is in my opinion,

1084
01:02:10,720 --> 01:02:13,760
Speaker 1: almost certainly correct. It's just the juxtaposition of like the

1085
01:02:13,840 --> 01:02:15,880
Speaker 1: cuteness and the evilness of Satan.

1086
01:02:16,160 --> 01:02:18,080
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's the same reason that the stay

1087
01:02:18,080 --> 01:02:20,720
Speaker 2: Puff marshmallow Man runs a muck. It's the reason that

1088
01:02:21,120 --> 01:02:24,360
Speaker 2: we have so many different stories horror tales that involve

1089
01:02:24,480 --> 01:02:28,440
Speaker 2: like a murderous Santa or monstrous Santa. It's the juxtaposition.

1090
01:02:28,600 --> 01:02:32,080
Speaker 2: It's the twisting, the flipping of the concept.

1091
01:02:32,400 --> 01:02:34,120
Speaker 1: Okay, do we need to break part one there?

1092
01:02:34,360 --> 01:02:36,000
Speaker 2: I think so. I think that's a good place to

1093
01:02:36,080 --> 01:02:38,440
Speaker 2: break it off, but we will be back in our

1094
01:02:38,520 --> 01:02:41,080
Speaker 2: next core episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind with

1095
01:02:41,480 --> 01:02:47,720
Speaker 2: additional explorations of the world of Eurokiara, some more examples

1096
01:02:47,720 --> 01:02:49,640
Speaker 2: of note that we thought were pretty interesting. We'll also

1097
01:02:49,680 --> 01:02:52,200
Speaker 2: get into some of these connections that you know that

1098
01:02:52,280 --> 01:02:55,840
Speaker 2: get into you know, religion and folklore, so make sure

1099
01:02:55,880 --> 01:02:58,640
Speaker 2: you tune in for that, and in the meantime, certainly

1100
01:02:58,720 --> 01:03:02,000
Speaker 2: right in and share your favorites with us. We'd love

1101
01:03:02,040 --> 01:03:05,240
Speaker 2: to discuss that in future episodes of the Listener Mail

1102
01:03:05,320 --> 01:03:08,440
Speaker 2: episodes that we run on Mondays. Also, if you reside

1103
01:03:08,440 --> 01:03:11,680
Speaker 2: in Japan, have visited Japan, our Japanese and so forth,

1104
01:03:11,800 --> 01:03:13,760
Speaker 2: and have additional thoughts on all of this, yes, write in.

1105
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:15,480
Speaker 2: We'd love to hear from you on all of that

1106
01:03:15,560 --> 01:03:17,960
Speaker 2: as well. Please remind you of the Stuff to Blow

1107
01:03:17,960 --> 01:03:20,240
Speaker 2: Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with

1108
01:03:20,280 --> 01:03:24,080
Speaker 2: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays Monday's Lister Mail Wednesdays

1109
01:03:24,080 --> 01:03:26,320
Speaker 2: we have short form episodes, and on Fridays we set

1110
01:03:26,320 --> 01:03:28,200
Speaker 2: aside most series concerns to just talk about a weird

1111
01:03:28,200 --> 01:03:29,919
Speaker 2: film on Weird House Cinema.

1112
01:03:30,160 --> 01:03:33,600
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer jj Posway.

1113
01:03:33,800 --> 01:03:35,320
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

1114
01:03:35,320 --> 01:03:37,840
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1115
01:03:37,840 --> 01:03:40,280
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1116
01:03:40,440 --> 01:03:42,959
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1117
01:03:42,960 --> 01:03:52,680
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1118
01:03:52,720 --> 01:03:54,080
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

1119
01:03:54,440 --> 01:03:57,360
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1120
01:03:57,560 --> 01:03:59,960
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show

1121
01:04:00,040 --> 01:04:14,120
Speaker 2: house to talk about