SERIES
If “Hello Kitty” is not a cat, what is she?
Sanrio, the Japanese company behind the cartoon and brand “Hello Kitty”, clarified that the character is “in no way” a feline, 50 years later.
This 2024 marks 50 years since the birth of “Hello Kitty”, the character designed by Yuko Shimizu in 1974. To celebrate, we’ve all had our bubbles burst. As it turns out, Hello Kitty is not a cat at all. Yes, the name, pointy ears, and whiskers all suggest that she is, but nope. And you might read this and think, maybe she’s a mouse or even, ironically, a dog. Wrong again.
What is Hello Kitty?
Jill Cook, the director of retail business development at Sanrio (the Japanese company behind Hello Kitty) broke the incredible news on NBC’s Today Show. Not only is Hello Kitty not a cat, but apparently she’s just “a little girl, born and raised in London.”
“She is not a cat. She’s never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature.”
Ah, yes, it is we who are the idiots.
This is the first I’m hearing about this, I’ll admit. But it’s not some secret being revealed for the first time either. The above quote is from Christine R. Yano, an anthropologist from the University of Hawaii who spent years studying Hello Kitty and her timeless, global popularity. Ten years ago, Yano was the curator of a Hello Kitty exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles and wrote a description calling the character a cat. Oops.
“I was corrected - very firmly,” Yano told the Los Angeles Times. “That’s one correction Sanrio made for my script for the show. Hello Kitty is not a cat. She’s a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She’s never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it’s called Charmmy Kitty.”
After wrecking all our worlds by delivering this revelation, Cook explained a bit about Hello Kitty’s background as well:
“Born and raised in the suburbs of London, she has a mom and das, and a twin sister, Mimmy, who’s also her best friend. She enjoys baking cookies and making new friends! She weighs five apples and is five apples tall.”
To be clear, just because Hello Kitty is a little girl does not automatically make her a human girl either. According to a Sanrio representative, Hello Kitty is an anthropomorphic character, like Donald Duck, who looks like a duck, but is not technically a duck, or Goofy, who looks like a dog but also has a friend (anthropomorphic Mickey Mouse) with an actual pet dog, Pluto.