Top thirty cutest corporate mascots in Japan

As well as being suitably silly for your Sunday entertainment, this recent survey from goo Ranking into Japan’s cutest corporate mascot is also an excuse to introduce a new blog, Japanese mascots, which does just what it says on the tin.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of March 2008 1,036 people from the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% were male, 7.0% in their teens, 14.7% in their twenties, 30.1% in their thirties, 27.0% in their forties, 10.9% in their fifties, and 10.2% aged sixty or over. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

My favourite character is Liyon-chan, but he doesn’t make the list as he’s a Kansai-only character, I think, or perhaps he was wrongly-counted as the Lion Lion-chan? From the list, it would have to be Pinky then Koala no March kun.

Note that characters from companies like Sanrio, Disney, and San-X who are sold as characters in their own right were excluded from this survey.

Oh, and click the character photos to see a video of the animal in action.
(more…)