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The official mascot character of the town, Oshamanbe in Hokkaido is so hilarious! His name is Manbe-kun and has iris hair, scallop ears, and crab body! No one says “He’s cute!” for the first time, but his fans say “more I see him he looks cuter.” Even Manbe-kun calls himself as “the world first character that you just have no choice but get used to it.”

Photo by Kandaijyoubu (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0))

According to his official website, he is show-off and scatterbrain. One of his dreams is to be a kids’ meal of McDonald (Does he want to be a toy or the meal?) LOL.

Manbe-kun has his official channel on YouTube but most of the videos are too weird! Like showing just him walking on a pedestrian bridge and the videos end with close-up shots of his eye.

As a town’s official mascot character, he is supposed to promote his town, but he barely pushes his town on Twitter. He is rather dry to his town. When someone complimented his town’s local specialty saying “the crab rice in Oshamanbe is delicious,” he coolly responded “It depends on the restaurant.”

Although he is weird and not handsome, he is popular among young women! He occasionally holds fan events, and when he had one in Tokyo this spring, 150 tickets were sold out in 5 hours.

The mascot character that has mysterious attraction will continue to play an active part in tourism.

Link: Town of Oshamanbe Website (English)

Source: Netallica (Japanese)

This is JAPAN Style!