Hello Kitty

Over 500 Hello Kitty Items Gone!

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Back in July I asked all of you to comment on a post to help me get rid of 200 Hello Kitty items by leaving a comment on the post. The deal was that if the thread got over 1000 comments, my wife would donate 200 of her Hello Kitty items to a local orphanage that I collect presents for here in Japan. If the thread failed to reach 1000, I had to take my wife on a Hello Kitty trip without complaining. Luckily, you all came through and there were a total of 1,219 comments left.

Last weekend we ended up gathering up all the items for the orphanage. We asked what the kids wanted most and the request was for plush and for small items like pencils, notebooks and key-chain holders that they could use at school. We ended up giving more than 300 Hello Kitty plush away along with 200 of the smaller items that the kids had requested meaning that over 500 Hello Kitty themed goods left my house!!

Hello Kitty Plush

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Hello Kitty MBA Hell

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I get all kinds of strange emails linking Hello Kitty with anything you can dream of. You know that the world is nearing the end when MBA students are getting college credit for studying Hello Kitty. You know that I’m in the middle of the Hello Kitty Hell tsunami when those students write to me for help with their project:

We are a group of first year full time MBA students in UC Irvine doing a big marketing project on Hello Kitty and we really need a big favor from you – if possible, to complete this 5 min survey and also to post this survey on your blog or ask your friends to help out as well. We need data that can exclude demographic limitations so we need people from all over the world to do this and we are looking for more than 2000 participants. Please use your charm and also your passion for kitty to help us on this survey!

Obviously these students need to do a bit more research if they believe that I have a “passion for kitty” or that I would ever place my friends into such a tortuous position in the guise of helping (although it seems to be a pretty good project for my enemies). Maybe they should get a failing grade before they even start and save everyone the pain of having to learn anything new about Hello Kitty.

Of course, my wife thinks it’s a wonderful idea and is of the opinion that college would be a much better place if all people had to study about Hello Kitty as part of their graduation requirement. Hello Kitty University – there’s something to look forward to that you know the people at Sanrio are probably all going to be saying, “why didn’t we think of that before?” at their next meeting.

Something tells me these students have already lined up plum job positions at the corporate headquarters of the evil feline or are trying to weasel their way in by kissing some you know what. Seriously, if you were a student and could pick any marketing theme project to conduct, why on earth would you pick Hello Kitty? Or an even better question, why the hell would you think it was a good idea to ask me to help you with it?

Hello Kitty Mail

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Some random Hello Kitty mail that has made its way into my email box:

I enjoy reading your blog, and I think it’s even more funny that you are helping hello kitty fanatics find more ideas of things to buy.

I have an honest question. I am 25 yrs, I don’t quite think of myself in a “midlife crisis” (unless I live to 50, of course) but why is it that I have become so obsessed with Sanrio and Hello Kitty as I have gotten older?

You know that adrenaline, butterflies in the stomach feeling of nervousness and excitement? Well, even a walk through a Target store, I will go in with intentions on purchasing a simple household cleaning item and walk out with a hello kitty trash can, laundry hamper, stickers, pillow, lamp, soap dispenser (which is still brand new in the back of my closet because I live in my boyfriends house and have no place to put it) stack of notebooks, folders (I am out of school) convection oven (which my poor boyfriend actually ended up using a couple times until he said it didn’t cook food bc it wasn’t meant to make real food!) and pretty much anything with her face on it. I remember as a kid liking hello kitty but mostly other kids things like disney, looney toons, barbie, etc. (actually , I only liked keroppi at the time because my favorite color used to be green). Anyways, I havent’ yet figured out why I get so “giddy” when I see anything Hello Kitty. My boyfriend has been supportive and hasn’t complained as of yet. He has gotten me the jewelry neiman marcus with hello kitty for birthdays and christmas, but I guess because he knows ANYTHING will make me happy, even if it’s a 99 cent eraser in the shape of her head…

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Hello Kitty Yuko Yamaguchi

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Public enemy number one of this blog:

Hello Kitty Yuko Yamaguchi

She gave an interview to Time Magazine. From the evil creator herself (as if there was ever any doubt of their plans):

What will Hello Kitty be doing in 10 years?

In 10 years’ time, everybody around the world will know her. Also, the number of male and female fans will be the same. Men who are still reluctant to be seen with Kitty in public today might be wearing Hello Kitty boxers. But they will eventually stop being shy and will show off Kitty proudly.

One more warning sign that all is not right in the world…

Help Me Get Rid of 200 Hello Kitty Items: Comment!

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One of the activities I undertake each year is collect toys for a local orphanage in Japan. While the orphanages here are pretty well run compared to other places in the world, there isn’t a whole lot of extra money for toys for the kids. So every year I go around and collect small toys such as bottle cap figures, key chains, phone straps and plush (stuffed animals) for the boys and girls.

In one of our recent discussions about this blog (my wife has learned to ignore it to a great extent, but when she does visit, I usually get an earful…) this past weekend, my wife commented that it’s always the same people who comment on this blog which means it’s only the same people who read this blog all the time. I argued that while there are a core group that tend to comment quite a bit, there are a lot of readers that just read and never comment (I should have added, “because everything is so ridiculous that it makes them speechless” but I was already treading on this ice of being sent to the couch in the Hello Kitty sleeping bag).

She gave me one of those laughs like “nice try, but I won’t believe it till I see it.” So I challenged that if I can get 1000 different people to comment on a post, would she be willing to donate some of her Hello Kitty stuff to the orphans? She agreed, but also stipulated that if I fail to reach 1000, I have to take her on a Hello Kitty trip this August and I’m not allowed to complain at all (that certainly would be nothing short of Hello Kitty Hell…)

So here’s the deal. For every 5 new people that comment (if it’s to say something bad about Hello Kitty, all the better, but even if it is something positive, I will forgive you since it’s for a good cause) my wife said that she will donate a Hello Kitty toy to the toy drive (even if if the total doesn’t reach 1000). 100 comments means 20 toys, 500 comments means 100 toys and 1000 comments means 200 toys. With your help, I have the opportunity to rid our house of 200 Hello Kitty items that will go to a good cause and my wife won’t even be able to complain about it. How great would that be?

Since I don’t want me wife accusing me of cheating, please don’t make multiple comments under different names (it’s too easy for her to figure it out). If you have never commented before, this is your chance to say something and help out a great cause. Please also take a few moments to spread the word and tell your friends. The thread needs 1000 comments from different people to donate the maximum number of toys — that’s less than half the current rss feed readers. Not only will I be deeply grateful in getting 200 products of the evil feline out of this house, it’s not often that you can bring a smile to the face of a child by simply leaving a short comment. Thank you in advance for all those that are willing to help.

Start commenting!!

Update: “Wow” is all I can say. When my wife and I made the deal, I had to reach 1000 comments before the end of the month. It took just over 2 days to accomplish it with all of your help. While I did find the number of Hello Kitty fanatics that read this blog a bit disturbing, I’ll suppress that horror knowing that this house will have 200 less Hello Kitty products crowded inside in the weeks to come and that there is no need to go on a Hello Kitty vacation this summer! That is certainly a great relief and something to celebrate!

Of course, I will photo document all the items with the evil feline that leave this house with great joy and pleasure as we pack them up and deliver them. Those will appear in future update posts about it. This is probably the biggest victory ever in Hello Kitty Hell and is certainly something that I could get used to!

Feel free to keep commenting. I’m not sure what the comments above 1000 will mean at this very moment, but I’ll figure out how to make those above 1000 help out as well for all those that took the time to stop by and help a good cause.

I’d just like to take another moment to thank everyone that took the time to comment to help out the kids. It’s very much appreciated.

Hello Kitty Death Warning Update

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It seems that the people at Sanrio actually do read this blog. I found the following email waiting for me this morning:

Hi Hello Kitty Hell,

I handle corporate communications for the Outblaze Group, which includes Sanrio Digital and Sanriotown. We were extremely disturbed to learn about the “when will you die” ad you reported at

//www.kittyhell.com/2008/06/02/hello-kitty-death-warning/

We are grateful that we were able to learn about this problem from your blog, as we have never encountered this ad ourselves. The imagery and message are very disturbing and has absolutely no place on any Sanrio web site. We have attempted to track down the culprit, however our ad serving agency (Activ8) cannot find the appropriate record without some additional information. The matter is complicated by the fact that there is no identifiable brand or URL on the screenshot.

It would be most helpful if we could obtain some information from the person who sent you the ad (Amy). The clickthrough URL would help us a lot. Alternatively, if we can determine the date and time that the ad displayed, we can check our logs and try to find out who the advertiser is. If you could put me in touch with the person who submitted the screenshot to you, or if you could relay some questions to Amy for us, we can try get to the bottom of this.

Thanks very much for reporting this and for your assistance.

Best regards,

Ibrahim

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Hello Kitty Hell Help

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I will be out of town for the first two weeks of April and I’m probably not going to have access to the Internet during that time to update this blog. I’m looking for someone to volunteer to take over during that time. If you feel that you can carry the Hello Kitty Hell banner while I’m away, please send me an email letting me know why you would be a good candidate for the job…

Hello Kitty Is Loved By Drug Lords

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Why does this seem so appropriate to me?

Hello Kitty, the Japanese cartoon figure popular with teenagers around the world, was used by a notorious Colombian drug lord to hide messages to his minions, according to a report Monday.

Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, who is being held in Brazil after his arrest in August, hid voice and text messages digitally encoded into e-mailed images of the innocent feline, Brazilian police told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.

Investigators say the disguised missives, hundreds of which were found on Abadia’s computer, could put the narcotics kingpin up to his neck in Kitty litter as some of them allegedly detail cocaine shipments between countries…

Abadia apparently picked Hello Kitty as his courier because his wife was a big fan of the Japanese icon — she had even decorated one of her rooms in a Brazilian house with Hello Kitty-themed chairs, watches and wallpaper.

Using Hello Kitty to help run a worldwide drug trafficking operation puts into perspective the real Hello Kitty and makes perfect sense. In fact, I would not be surprised if Sanrio sanctioned this because they felt that drug trafficking was becoming more popular than Hello Kitty and wanted in on the action (as they seem to do with anything else that has even the slightest bit of popularity).

The only bad part of this whole incident is that last paragraph highlighted in bold — I think he has a good insanity defense that will probably get him off…

full article

Hello Kitty Bedroom

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Receiving emails with Hello Kitty photos attached is disturbing in itself, but even more disturbing is the trend of people sending me photos of their personal Hello Kitty stuff:

Hello Kitty bedroom

Here is a simple question. Why in the world would I want to look at your Hello Kitty crap when I already have to spend the entire day looking at all my wife’s Hello Kitty crap? For all those that keep sending me photos of their Hello Kitty stuff, please be clear about the following:

1. No matter how Hello Kittified your room, house or life is, it’s still paltry compared to my wife.

2. I realize that it bothers you to no end that there is someone out there that has more Hello Kitty stuff than you, but I’m not going to send you photos of all my wife’s Hello Kitty crap so that you can see how much further you have to go to top her.

3. I will not go through the list of Hello Kitty things that you send to me and tell you which ones my wife has and which ones she doesn’t. I would rather go to the dentist and have a root canal performed without any anesthesia than do something like that.

4. I could really care less how much time it has taken you to lay out all your Hello Kitty crap so that you could take a photo of it to send to me. Instead of whining that your effort should get the photo posted on this blog, save yourself time and me the horror of seeing it and just don’t do it.

5. While you may think it would be fun to be the penfriend of some guy that bashes on Hello Kitty on a regular basis, the thought of that is one of my worst nightmares so please stop asking.

6. While you may think that I’m a complete (insert expletive of choice here) because I don’t use your photos on this blog or write back to you when you email me, think of this as me actually being kind. If I did either, you would be even more offended.

7. Your 1000 word essays to me on why Hello Kitty is great is a waste of both your time and mine. In fact, I read the first 2 sentences (if that much) and then hit delete.

8. Yes, I realize that there are other Sanrio characters that exist. No, I’m not going to make a blog about them, too, because you want me to “find obscure photos of these characters so you don’t have to spend all your time looking for them.” And no, I’m not going to send you another email explaining in more detail than my previous answer of simply stating “No” — which, if I might say, I thought was quite generous on my part to even reply with that.

9. No, I am not willing to help you find some Hello Kitty crap that you have been searching for for the last 10 years even if it isn’t listed on this blog. Since I’ve already made it clear that I’m not going to tell you where you can get the Hello Kitty crap on this site, I thought that this would be obvious, but apparently I still underestimate the common sense of Hello Kitty fanatics.

10. Your offer to send nude photos of you and your friends in exchange to find out where you can buy some of the crap on this blog, while inventive, would leave me on the couch in the Hello Kitty sleeping bag even longer than when I say bad things about Hello Kitty — therefore it’s not an acceptable trade no matter how beautiful you think you are.

Unfortunately, these are a typical monthly round of emails when you live in Hello Kitty Hell…

Photo sent in by Cangela11 who, among all the others who have contributed to the above list, deserves unthinkable torture for believing that it could in any way, shape or form be a good idea to send any of their photos or emails to me…