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Flora 於 2014-8-30 02:05 AM 發表
where is the whole story???
or decades many Hello Kitty fans have assumed the beloved Japanese cartoon character was a fancy feline, an impression reinforced by her whiskers and pointy cat-like ears.
But those fans were wrong.
Hello Kitty is, in fact, a little British girl, a story in the Los Angeles Times revealed this week.
The little girl even has an extensive back story — including a twin sister, a love for apple pie and a pet cat named Charmmy Kitty.
Hello Kitty scholar Christine R. Yano told the Los Angeles Timesshe was corrected “very firmly” by Sanrio, the Tokyo-based company that produces Hello Kitty, when she suggested the cartoon character was a cat.
Despite her feline qualities, Hello Kitty is never depicted on all fours and always walks and sits like a two-legged creature, Yano noted.
A spokesperson for Sanrio reportedly told gaming website Kotaku that the cartoon is a “personification” or “anthropomorphization” of a cat.
The revelation has fans reeling. Many took to Twitter to express their utter dismay.
Though Tram Ly regularly sees Hello Kitty’s face, she never imagined the cartoon was a little girl.
“I was surprised. I really thought she was a cat,” said Ly, who works at Just You - Sarah & Tom on Yonge St. “This is really random news.”
Adjusting to this “new” version of Hello Kitty will take some time, Ly said.
“It’s going to take awhile for me to take in that she’s a kid, not a cat,” she said. “It’s just so weird.”
Hello Kitty products are popular commodities at the store, Ly said. Though Just You carries a vast array of gifts and knick-knacks adorned with Japanese and Korean pop culture icons, it’s Hello Kitty merchandise customers coo over.
Hello Kitty’s sweet, mouthless face appears again and again throughout the store, plastered on the pink and white wallpaper behind the cash. There are shelves of plush Hello Kittys in an array of costumes and rows of sparkling Hello Kitty jewelry. There are notebooks and cups and wallets all decorated with the white cat-like face. There’s even a Hello Kitty toilet paper dispenser.
And this merchandise is just the tip of the Hello Kitty iceberg. Since she first appeared on a coin purse in 1974, the cartoon has become a cultural icon, replicated on everything from sewing machines to beer bottles.
This year, Hello Kitty’s 40th birthday is being celebrated in style in Los Angeles, where a retrospective celebrating her history and influence on pop culture will open in October at the Japanese American National Museum. The exhibit is being curated in part by Yano, who wrote the book Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek Across the Pacific.
The first-ever Hello Kitty convention will also take place in L.A. from Oct. 30 to Nov. 2.
