The flamboyant designer of Japanese cartoon and global mega-brand Hello Kitty defended the cute cat against new rivals yesterday as the character prepares to celebrate her 40th birthday.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Hong Kong Book Fair, Yuko Yamaguchi took the concept of life imitating art to another level, wearing a Kitty-style strawberry dress with dyed auburn hair piled into two buns topped with a red ribbon — the cat’s signature accessory.
As Kitty enters her next decade, she faces increasing competition from more cutting-edge cartoons like Brown and Cony, the bear and rabbit mascots of Tokyo-based messaging app Line, which has taken Asia by storm in recent months. However, Yamaguchi insisted Kitty would cope with growing older in a digital age.
Photo: AFP
“There are new cartoon characters that are coming out daily... [but] I think Hello Kitty is the only one that can adapt to the changes in the world,” Yamaguchi said.
The moon-faced mouthless white cat first appeared in 1974 on a coin purse in Japan and has since built up a worldwide fan base, appearing on everything from handbags to sex toys.
Her image is licensed by Japanese company Sanrio, which says on its Web site that it makes more than US$5 billion in retail sales each year. Hello Kitty is its flagship brand. Yamaguchi, who was at the Hong Kong fair to tie in with its new Japan Pavilion, has been the lead designer of Hello Kitty since 1980 and promotes herself as the character’s best friend.
“She is very motivated and open and wants to face the future,” she says of the character.
There are plenty of detractors of Hello Kitty’s sweetness — entire blogs are dedicated to tearing down the cute icon, with online spoofs depicting her as a horror movie character.
However, Yamaguchi said her appeal can endure.
“There are already three generations of fans that like Hello Kitty, so I hope that there will be more fans like that in the future, like people in a family loving Hello Kitty together,” she said.
The main Hello Kitty 40th birthday celebrations will take place later this year, including the first ever fan convention, which is to be hosted in Los Angeles at the end of October.
Apple Inc has closed in on an agreement with OpenAI to use the start-up’s technology on the iPhone, part of a broader push to bring artificial intelligence (AI) features to its devices, people familiar with the matter said. The two sides have been finalizing terms for a pact to use ChatGPT features in Apple’s iOS 18, the next iPhone operating system, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation is private. Apple also has held talks with Alphabet Inc’s Google about licensing its Gemini chatbot. Those discussions have not led to an agreement, but are ongoing. An OpenAI
INSATIABLE: Almost all AI innovators are working with the chipmaker to address the rapidly growing AI-related demand for energy-efficient computing power, the CEO said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported about 60 percent annual growth in revenue for last month, benefiting from rapidly growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing applications. Revenue last month expanded to NT$236.02 billion (US$7.28 billion), compared with NT$147.9 billion in April last year, the second-highest level in company history, TSMC said in a statement. On a monthly basis, revenue surged 20.9 percent, from NT$195.21 billion in March. As AI-related applications continue to show strong growth, TSMC expects revenue to expand about 27.6 percent year-on-year during the current quarter to between US$19.6 billion and US$20.4 billion. That would
‘FULL SUPPORT’: Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said he hopes more companies would settle in the prefecture to create an area similar to Taiwan’s Hsinchu Science Park The newly elected governor of Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture said he is ready to ensure wide-ranging support to woo Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to build its third Japanese chip factory there. Concerns of groundwater shortages when TSMC’s two plants begin operations in the prefecture’s Kikuyo have spurred discussions about the possibility of tapping unused dam water, Kumamoto Governor Takashi Kimura said in an interview on Saturday. While Kimura said talks about a third plant have yet to occur, Bloomberg had reported TSMC is already considering its third Japanese fab — also in Kumamoto — which would make more advanced chips. “We are
KEY TECHNOLOGY: South Korea’s semiconductor exports reached US$11.7 billion in March, and the chip sector accounts for one-fifth of the nation’s total exports South Korea would set up an aid package worth more than US$7 billion to support its chip industry, the South Korean Ministry of Economy and Finance said yesterday. This initiative follows its pledge last year to build the world’s largest chip center using US$240 billion of private investment, primarily from Samsung Electronics Co, the world’s largest memorychip maker, as it seeks an edge in the global industry. Seoul “is preparing an assistance package of more than 10 trillion won (US$7.3 billion) to support fabless, chips materials and manufacturing equipment in all areas of chips industry,” South Korean Minister of Economy and Finance