GUDETAMA PLUSH TRIAL

Though Sanrio hasn’t revealed its exact sales figures, Marchi also notes customers who are interested in Gudetama are “definitely skewing a little bit of an older demographic, but I know 7-year-olds who have a Gudetama plush because they think it's a cute, funny blob of an egg.” And as the Wall Street Journal reported in January, “Since the egg’s introduction two years ago, Sanrio has shipped 1,700 variations of Gudetama-themed items in Japan, ranging from socks to soy sauce to suitcases.” Gudetama-themed merchandise is sold at other stores too, including teenage angst supplier Hot Topic. Hello Kitty, Sanrio’s flagship character, has 226. Gudetama has 115, including a skateboard, a desk fan, and a talking tissue box cover, in addition to more typical apparel and plushes. SanrioĪ glance at the sad pocket of the Sanrio website where Kirimichan and its perpetual smile lives in loneliness shows that there are only two Kirimichan items for sale. It has really, really expanded and blown up over the last year.” Kirimichan. “Gudetama the lazy egg actually came in second, but we released products based on Gudetama, and they really, really took off.

“We actually started to release products based on the salmon filet and its friends,” Dave Marchi, Sanrio’s vice president of marketing and brand management, told me. Fans voted, and Gudetama actually placed second, losing out to a cheerful salmon filet named Kirimichan.

GUDETAMA PLUSH TRIAL

Contests like these serve two purposes: to help the company’s designers find a creative spark, and to serve as a trial balloon for potential new characters before Sanrio sinks money into their corresponding merchandise. In 2013, Sanrio held a competition in Japan to come up with a food-based character. Since its creation, Gudetama has been a loser. Gudetama’s origin story is about coming in second, and thriving anyway Gudetama and its popularity are part of a more expansive cultural movement - a reaction to life that’s been punctuated by uncertainty, turbulence, and outrage. But the response stems from a combination of the character’s relatability, its need to be cared for, and the way it challenges us to rethink what we find cute. It may seem weird that an idle egg could inspire such widespread affection. Gudetama is Melville’s Bartleby in unfertilized yolk form.

Each new day is one more chance for Gudetama to experience life on the lowest setting, and its ultimate pleasure is in doing nothing. Though it can do these things and has the potential for more, it would rather not. Gudetama can talk (in short sentences), move (more like wiggle), emote (only pain), and breathe (particularly when it sleeps). Its main attraction is its apathetic personality. But Gudetama’s looks are just a fraction of its appeal. Gudetama looks like a character someone gave up on, and yet people cannot get enough of it. Where Hello Kitty and her compatriots like Keroppi (a frog that looks more like the owner of an old-fashioned ice cream shop than an amphibian) are known for bringing adorable charm to items like lunchboxes, luggage, T-shirts, and toothbrushes and evoking warmth from the coldest of hearts, Gudetama, hatched in 2013, was born into a world it would prefer to avoid. It’s also the company’s most popular character in recent memory, even though its blob-like appearance is the antithesis of Sanrio’s historical emphasis on cuteness. Gudetama is a relatively recent addition to the Sanrio universe - which, until recent memory, revolved around the tiny-eyed, red-hair-bow-wearing being known as Hello Kitty. But Gudetama isn’t any of those - because that would make too much sense for a success story that, on its surface, shouldn’t make any sense at all. To the naked eye, it could easily be mistaken for a golden bean, a kernel of corn, or an unappealing drop of honey. It has thighs but no visible joints, a head but no neck. It’s a fictional character of sorts, one with limbs but no fingers or toes. It’s hard to tell at a glance, but Gudetama is an egg yolk with a butt crack.