Japanese character goods, like Hello Kitty, are popular worldwide for their cute and recognizable designs. Now, Sony is entering the fray. Sony Creative Products (SCP), the division that manages the Sony Group’s character IPs, wants to develop its own characters with universal appeal that can generate 10 billion yen (approx. $62.8 million) in annual sales by 2030.
As reported by Nikkei, the aim is to create original characters that Sony can make merchandise and multimedia centered around. To this end, it has established a dedicated team tasked with creating potential hit characters, and even opened a special event space in Tokyo.
Living in Japan, you really can’t escape from mascot characters and their merchandise. Chances are your nearest bank, supermarket or fast food chain is doing some kind of collaboration with some recognizable bug-eyed cutie. Many companies, cities and prefectures have their own mascot characters (the best known is probably Kumamoto prefecture’s Kumamon). Then there’s the major player in character goods: Sanrio, home of the world-famous Hello Kitty and a whole stable of fluffy icons including Kuromi, Cinnamoroll, and Pompom Purin. There’s also San-X, the creator of Rirakuma, and the Sumikko Gurashi family of characters.
Now, Sony is aiming to take on this market with new original characters of its own. Currently in the running is Nemu the Night Owl Bear, who has racked up over 1 million followers in a year. Created in collaboration with Tokyo-based company Tsumupapa, Nemu is a bear character who worries so much about life’s problems that he struggles to sleep. According to a SCP executive officer Nikkei interviewed, this “stress-filled society theme is resonating across borders,” with the bear apparently gaining much popularity in South Korea. Further plans for merchandise and an anime featuring Nemu are currently in the works.
Sony’s goal of 10 billion yen in annual sales by 2030 for original IP characters is a comparatively high one. For context, a character in Japan is usually considered a hit if its merchandise racks up between 2~3 billion yen in annual sales, according to SCP. However, with the Sony Group’s broad reach across anime, music, game and film, an original mascot (or two) already has many potential avenues to score fans and generate revenue.
As for the video game sector, while Nintendo has Mario and Sega has Sonic, Sony has always struggled to find an enduring mascot. If you ask gamers who Sony’s mascot is, their answer will probably depend on which PlayStation generation they grew up with. They might say Crash Bandicoot, Sackboy, or Astrobot. Then there are the many human characters from one-time PlayStation exclusives that became associated with the brand (Lara Croft, Solid Snake, Kratos, Nathan Drake et al.). There’s also Toro Inoue, the white cat from the Doko Demo Issyo series who became a PlayStation mascot in Japan for a while. However, Toro lacks the widespread international recognition that Nintendo’s plumber and Sega’s blue hedgehog enjoy.
The current issue is that Sony suffers from a lack of fully-owned, recognizable original characters, and the SCP aims to address this. It has a track record in handling domestic events for popular character IPs owned by other companies, and for revitalizing specific IPs in Japan, like the Peanuts comic strip characters (Snoopy and co.), which it acquired in March 2026. SCP is also using technology to enhance peoples’ encounters with such characters at events.
To this end, Sony Creative Products opened the Yurakucho Museum in Tokyo. This space aims to provide immersive character-related exhibitions. Currently, SCP is using haptics to enhance a Pingu exhibition, including vibrating floors and gusts of wind. Sony holds the marketing rights to Pingu in Japan, and doubled the Swiss-born penguin character’s merchandise sales in the country last year (source: Mainichi).
But can Sony apply its marketing successes with well-known character IPs to its own brand new, original creations? Could we get tie-in anime series and games with some cute new Sony characters? Watch this space.
Image credit: Tsumupapa.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
