The Hello Kitty thing mentioned in this episode. Also, Pinkie Pie ring.

Holly loves Hello Kitty, and I think she’s pretty cute. And if you like her, you’re in luck! Because you can get her on EVERYTHING. So we thought we’d talk about that.

• We talk for a while about crap you can buy that has Hello Kitty on
• Shot glasses. Pencil cases. The thing that you can see in this post.
• Sanrio’s strategy of making people love their stuff at a very early age
• Hello Kitty’s lack of mouth and the problems this causes with things like cartoons
• She smiles with her heart.
• Charmmykitty
• Hello Kitty is from both London and Japan, so she gets to be popular everywhere
• Hello Kitty’s Guide to Japan
• The Hello Kitty/Smurf apple math
• Hello Kitty’s blood type is A?
• The Hello Kitty plane
• Tuxedo Sam
• Badtz-Maru
• Mimi
• Dear Daniel
• My Melody
• Kuromi
• The LittleTwinStars
• Research on cuteness
• Intrauterine cannibalism in sharks
• Keroppi and onomatopoeia
•  A digression on apples
• First Hello Kitty thing: a coin purse in 1974
• How many Hello Products: 15,000? 13,000? 22,000? We don’t know.
• Chococat
• Hello Kitty Halloween
• Characters wearing costumes of other things
• Sanrio Puroland
• Hello Kitty bento boxes, restaurants and waffles
• My theory on how Hello Kitty’s name gets wrongly translated in a product
• Hello Kitty’s birthday: November 1
• Hello Kitty Hell and other Hello Kitty craziness blogs
• Why do people hate Hello Kitty because she has no mouth?
• Listener mail from Justyna, who talks about our Tim Burton episode and not messing with mom’s scissors
• Episode link: Hello Kitty and the Culture of Cute

My research:

• Boudreau, John. “Asian carrier takes flight with Hello Kitty.” Contra Costa Times. 03 June 2012.
• Ko, Yu-Fen. Hello Kitty and the Identity Politics in Taiwan. Hsih-Shin University, Taipei.
• McGray, Douglas. “Japan’s Gross National Cool.”
• Tabuchi, Hiroko. “In Search of Adorable, as Hello Kitty Gets Closer to Goodbye.” New York Times. 15 May 2010.
• Kercher, Sophia. “Hello Kitty, One Cool Cat.” Los Angeles Times. 01 Nov 2009.
• Denison, Rayna. “Anime tourism: discursive construction and reception of the Studio Ghibli Art Museum.” Japan Forum. 2010.

Holly’s research:

• Hello Kitty’s Citizenship Controversy: Is She British or Japanese?
• Way More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Hello Kitty
• Sanrio Japan’s Hello Kitty Bio

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