Hello Kitty

Hello Kitty "You can never have too many friends!" Gender: Female Type: Kind and Caring Cat Species: Cat Portrayed by: Japanese: Fuyumi Shiraishi (Kitty and Mimi's New Umbrella) Mami Koyama (Hello Kitty's Cinderella) Akemi Okamura (Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater) Megumi Hayashibara (Sanrio Word of Animation, Hello Kitty's Paradise, Various Sanrio Puroland Shows) English: Tara Strong (Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater) Karen Bernstein (Daisuki! Hello Kitty) Monica Rial (Hello Kitty's Animation Theater) Melissa Fahn (Hello Kitty's Paradise) Katia Shirassu (Hello Kitty Fun) Shannon Settlemyre (Growing Up With Hello Kitty) Juliet Simmons (Hello Kitty and Friends - Let's Learn Together) Julia Sales (The World of Hello Kitty) Sarah Anne Williams (Hello Kitty and Friends Supercute Adventures) Status: Alive Media of origin: Hello Kitty

Hello Kitty (ハローキティ, Harō Kitī), also known by her full name, Kitty White (キティ・ホワイト, Kitī Howaito), is a fictional character produced by the Japanese company Sanrio, created by Yuko Shimizu, and designed by Yuko Yamaguchi. She is the titular character of the brand of the same name. Hello Kitty is portrayed as a perpetual 3rd-grade student who lives outside of London. She along with her twin sister Mimmy, was born on 1 November 1974.

Hello Kitty is a staple of the kawaii segment of Japanese popular culture. Originally marketed toward pre-teenage girls, Hello Kitty's image found commercial success among not only her original target audience but adolescent and adult consumers as well.

She is voiced by Tara Strong in Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater, Karen Bernstein in Daisuki! Hello Kitty, Monica Rial in Hello Kitty's Animation Theater, Melissa Fahn in Hello Kitty's Paradise, Katia Shirassu in Hello Kitty Fun, Shannon Settlemyre in Growing Up With Hello Kitty, Juliet Simmons in Hello Kitty and Friends - Let's Learn Together, Julia Sales in The World of Hello Kitty and Sarah Anne Williams in Hello Kitty and Friends Supercute Adventures.

Why She's A Perfect Friend

1. She is a classic Japanese icon, much like characters such as Super Mario, Pikachu, Kirby, Doraemon, Astro Boy, Goku, etc.
   • Not only that, but she is also one of the most iconic cartoon characters ever created apart characters such as from Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, SpongeBob SquarePants, Winnie the Pooh, Bob the Builder, Homer Simpson from The Simpsons, Sonic the Hedgehog, Thomas the Tank Engine and Tom and Jerry. She is also possibly one of the most famous fictional characters out there.
2. Due to her popularity, her character essentially became the face of the Sanrio brand, whilst Sanrio has had it's fair share of popular characters like Aggretsuko, My Melody, Gudetama, Keroppi and plenty of others, Hello Kitty is easily the most well-known character amongst the company, it's even to the point where people just refer to Sanrio as the "Hello Kitty company" or "the company that created Hello Kitty".
3. With that being said, similar to Pikachu, Hello Kitty is often considered a fan favourite amongst the Sanrio brand, mostly because of how cute she looks.
4. She has good portrayal in many pieces of media that she is in, as she is often shown to be a very nice and caring person to everyone around her, and unlike Peppa Pig and Caillou, who both encourage bad behavior towards friends and family, Hello Kitty on the other hand actually encourages kids to be nice and have good behavior to others.
   • She is shown to have a healthy relationship with her twin sister Mimmy, which is most notable in most of the anime and cartoons.
   • She also is very caring towards her friends too, the best example of this is her relationship with her best friend, My Melody.
   • To show even further that she is a very caring person, she is shown to be a pacifist, as she hates the idea of people fighting with each other, and she always tries to make people to get along with each other, as seen in the Gundam vs. Hello Kitty crossover.
     • Furthermore, she is a great role model for children and a great influence on them as she can teach children to be kind and caring to their friends and family.
5. Her design is very well done, it's a pretty simple design, but is also pretty cute to look at and is also iconic, but it's not done in a way where it looks lazy, unlike Peppa Pig, the simple design is done quite well as it can make people identify the fact that it is Hello Kitty if they ever saw her by looking at her face.
6. She never resorts to getting angry and worked up whenever a problem gets in her way, and she always tries to fix that problem no matter what.
7. Despite being a Mary-Sue in most pieces of media that she is portrayed in, she is less of a Mary-Sue in Growing Up With Hello Kitty, due to the fact that in every episode, she isn't shown to be completely free from problems, and often learns different life lessons in every episode of that show.
8. Her popularity boomed into so many different merchandising based off of her, she has had it all, from clothing to accessories to toys to games to books to manga to anime series to music albums and even theme parks.
9. She has even made some appearances in video games, some games include I Wanna Be the Boshy, Super Mario Maker, Sonic Dash and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania.
10. She has had a massive amount of crossovers with other pieces of media, possibly even more than any other franchise in the world. Notable examples include Ready Player One, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, Sonic the Hedgehog, Naruto, Chucky, Super Mario and Gundam in Gundam vs. Hello Kitty.
11. Her voice is very pleasant and cute to listen to, most of the actors who play her role in the various pieces of media all do great jobs at voicing her.
    • Something that is very interesting and worth noting is that Tara Strong actually had Hello Kitty as her first ever major voice role in any cartoon in Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater, you know it's awesome when one of the most popular characters in the world launched Tara Strong's acting career.
12. Much like Mario, her character mainly has a widespread appeal to people of all ages, as her character not only managed to find an appeal to children of all ages, but also to teenagers and adults too.
13. She is pretty heroic too, as shown in Hello Kitty: Roller Rescue, in which she and her friends save the earth from aliens.
14. She has a very awesome theme song that was done by Megumi Hayashibara.

Bad Qualities

1. As cute as her design may be, the lack of a mouth can be kind of unsettling for some viewers and it also makes her character pretty emotionless too.
   • Though, her creator has stated that the reason that Hello Kitty has no mouth is that she wanted her character to make the person who sees her project their own emotion onto Hello Kitty.
   • However, some anime/cartoons have Hello Kitty have a mouth in them.
2. With the exception of her counterpart in Growing Up With Hello Kitty, she can be treated as a Mary Sue for the most part, as nothing really goes wrong for her and she is often seen as a perfect person who never makes mistakes, it's even more evident by the fact she has a lack of emotional diversity, since most of the time, Hello Kitty is either happy or sad.
3. Her voice can admittedly be quite annoying when she cries.
4. Much like Mario and Pikachu, she has faced some controversies:
   • The Dutch artist Dick Bruna, creator of Miffy, has suggested that Hello Kitty is a copy of Miffy, being rendered in a similar style, stating disapprovingly in an interview for the British paper "The Daily Telegraph", stating that "Hello Kitty is a copy [of Miffy], I think. I don't like that at all. I always think, 'No, don't do that. Try to make something that you think of yourself".

Trivia

• Hello Kitty is currently the second highest-grossing media franchise of all time, with her brand gaining a total revenue of $88.51 billion in USD.
• Despite having Kitty in her name and her looking like a cat, the creator has actually stated that Hello Kitty is in fact not a cat at all, Christine R. Yano stated that "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".
• As mentioned above, the character had sparked a minor controversy, when a Dutch artist Dick Bruna, the creator of Miffy, alleged that Hello Kitty is a rip off of Miffy, being rendered in a similar style.
• Due to her popularity, she has been referenced in tons of other pieces of media:
  • She has been most notably referenced a few times in some episodes of The Simpsons, a few examples include the "Hello Kitty factory" joke in "Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo", Marge replacing all of Bart's trophies with items from the Hello Kitty expansion in "Marge Gamer" and Marge saying her line "What the Hello Kitty?!" in "Homer's Paternity Coot".
  • Robot Chicken has made a few sketches involving Hello Kitty in them, these include "Enter the Fat One", which has Hello Kitty fighting Joey Fatone as a part of Joey's training, and "Straight From Hello Kitty's Mouth", which has Hello Kitty throwing up a furball.
  • Sometimes her merchandise and/or toys can be seen in the background in a few movies, such as Problem Child, The Smurfs, Bird Box, Superbad and Deadpool.
• Hello Kitty has appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in three forms:
  • The first one was in the form of a walk-around character costume. During this appearance, Hello Kitty was joined by fellow Sanrio characters as they waved to the crowd from the formerly-named Fruit Juice Valley float.
  • The second one has Hello Kitty resemble a "Super Cute" superhero version of herself in the form of a helium balloon.
  • The latest one has Hello Kitty flying in a retro plane in the form of a helium balloon.
• Despite her living in London according to her biography, every voice actor that portrays her in the cartoons give her an american accent.
• The creator has stated that the reason why Hello Kitty has no mouth is because she wanted the people who see Hello Kitty to project their own emotion onto Kitty's face.
• Both SEGA and Sanrio once did a partnership with each other, and in celebration of the partnership, they released Hello Kitty plushies where she is dressed up as Sonic the Hedgehog and an event for Sonic Dash where Hello Kitty, My Melody, Chococat and Badtz-Maru became unlockable characters.
  • Similarly, Hello Kitty became a buyable DLC character for Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania.
• She, along with My Melody, became an unlockable Mystery Mushroom costume for Super Mario Maker.
• A few songs are named after her, most notably the one made by the Canadian songwriter Avril Lavigne, who has written and recorded a song called "Hello Kitty" for her fifth studio album, which was released in 2013.
• A full-length theatrical movie of Hello Kitty was initially planned for 2019 by Sanrio. In early 2019, it was revealed that New Line Cinema will be teaming up alongside Sanrio and Flynn Picture Company for an "English language film based on the venerable kid brand", and in 2021, it was reported that Jennifer Coyle and Leo Matsuda have been hired to direct the film with Lindsey Beer set to pen the script.
• According to her biography, she has the same height as a stack of five apples and the same weight of three apples.

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