Hello Kitty, cartoon character whose likeness adorns hundreds of products for children and adults throughout the world.
Created in 1974 by the Japanese merchandising company Sanrio and known internationally as Hello Kitty, Kitty White is a small, round-faced, cartoon catlike girl with black eyes, a yellow nose, no mouth, and a red bow perched on her left ear. Sanrio maintains that Hello Kitty is a girl and not a cat, although she displays feline characteristics such as pointed ears, whiskers, and a tail. According to the “biography” established by Sanrio, Hello Kitty was born in suburban London, where she lives with her parents and her twin sister, Mimmy. Among the simple pleasures she enjoys are baking cookies, playing the piano, and, above all, making friends. The third-grader’s playmates include a rabbit, a bear, a raccoon, and a pair of monkeys. Hello Kitty’s primary-colored, simple, and wholesome world appealed to young children.
Sanrio created Hello Kitty as part of a line of cartoon characters to embellish its products. Hello Kitty first appeared on children’s items such as coin purses and by the mid-1980s had gained worldwide fame; the image decorated a wide range of merchandise aimed at young girls—in particular, personal care items such as toothbrushes and barrettes and school supplies, including pens, pencils, and writing paper. Such items helped connect children’s play to the adult world. In the 1990s Sanrio began marketing Hello Kitty products to adult women as “retro” objects: handbags and makeup compacts sporting the iconic character’s face appealed to the senses of both nostalgia and irony, coinciding with the rise of Japanese kawaii, or “cuteness,” culture. At first in the domestic Japanese market and later internationally, Sanrio further expanded its Hello Kitty product lines to include jewelry, electronics, and household appliances, along with other large-ticket items.
Hello Kitty starred in several television series, beginning with the American animated program Hello Kitty’s Furry Tale Theater in 1987, and also appeared in books and video games. In Japan, Sanrio established the theme parks Puroland (1990; in Tokyo) and Harmonyland (1991; in Ōita), both of which feature its licensed characters, most prominent among them Hello Kitty. In 2008 Hello Kitty was named Japan’s official tourism ambassador to China.