Sunday, September 12, 2004
Is Hello Kitty a Copycat? Update: Nope, she just shares DNA with a rabbit.
A blogger who describes himself as an "extraordinary ordinary guy in Japan" says this on the 30th anniversary of Hello Kitty:
"Kitty's design was just a crib from ... Musti, created by the Belgian animator/director Ray Goossens (1924-1998) [Ed note: she's the center figure in the BoingBoing graphic at left]. Musti was started as an animation series on TV in 1968, and its picture books were also published. I read some of that books and loved it in my childhood. Although it is evident to everybody that Kitty was an imitation of Musti, Sanrio, the publisher of Hello Kitty have not touched on it. It is said that the total copyright fee for Hello Kitty reaches around 15 billion yen (13.7 million USD) per year, and Sanrio got 23.7 billion yen (21.6 million USD) gross sales in second quarter of 2004. I wonder why they don't feel shady about hiding the fact."I'm no Hello Kitty historian, and that's news to me. Is it true? Link to post. This guy has a cool blog. His post about Japanese "jinxes" was also interesting.
On a related note, don't miss the image of "Hello Kitty De Milo" in this news story, which is, like, so obviously a total ripoff of some Greek art dude. Link (Thanks, Brian)
Update: This is turning into one big plushy piracy clusterfuck! BoingBoing reader Eva says, "See my response on Hello Kitty vs Musti here. Basically, I think Musti is in turn a rip off of the Dutch rabbit Miffy, which was published more than a decade before Musti." Link
Update: John Bloor says, "Regarding Hello Kitty / Musti / Miffy - Dick Bruna designed Miffy and he also drew Hello Kitty, so there's your link!"
posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:51:54 PM
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