Perfume -- Sumikko Disco（すみっコディスコ）

 

When it comes to cute, little and Japanese characters, Hello Kitty from the Sanrio corporation will always be the first thing to come to mind since she's been around since 1974. Of course, since then Japanese pop culture and much of the world's pop culture have been inundated with many more cute, little and Japanese characters. A lot of those have been created by the stationery company San-X including their most popular representative, Rilakkuma the bear who's been around since 2003. Incidentally, the above video comes courtesy of the YouTube channel Petit Bear.

But apparently that wasn't enough for San-X. In 2012, a new set of adorable characters were launched called Sumikko Gurashi（すみっコぐらし...Living in the Corner）, each with their own idiosyncrasies (but happily nothing leading to homicidal urges). For example, the lead character is Shirokuma who is indeed a polar bear but wants nothing to do with the cold (so I gather that he must be Torontonian). There is also Penguin who is green and enjoys cucumbers, and then there is Tonkatsu, the fatty edge piece of what was once deep-fried pork cutlet.

It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that the anime industry would come calling and their first movie came out in 2019. The above video seems to be of some tiny vignette, though.

A couple of more movies have come out with the most recent entry being released in November 2023, "Sumikko Gurashi: Tsugibagi Koujou no Fushigi na Ko"（すみっコぐらし ツギハギ工場のふしぎなコ...The Strange Child of the Cobble Factory）.

For this movie, Perfume provided the theme song "Sumikko Disco", a song so technopop catchy that even the Sumikko Gurashi are boogying away themselves. This was also the trio's 17th single which came out on the same day as the movie. I wonder whether they will be performing "Sumikko Disco" in a few weeks' time at the annual Kohaku Utagassen where they are appearing for their 16th time.