This past weekend, we hosted family and friends in our home and took it upon ourselves to share Seattle’s lovely coffee, foods, and music as much as two days would allow. One such adventure included the EMP Museum, my favorite museum of the city.
EMP is a leading-edge nonprofit museum, dedicated to the ideas and risk-taking that fuel contemporary popular culture. -empmuseum.org
The featured exhibit until May 15th is the Hello Kitty Exhibit titled, “Hello! Exploring the Supercute World of Hello Kitty.” I never was one of those girls who jumped on the kitty love, but I did have my favorite Sanrio characters over the years, including Bad Badtz-Maru the penguin and Pompompurin the golden retriever. It was so much fun walking through the rooms and seeing the many ways that Hello Kitty has influenced people. She continues to be an icon on a global scale, and I wholeheartedly support her sentiment that “you can never have too many friends.”
Below are some of the many pictures I took. If you get a chance, I suggest you stop by and see the exhibit for yourself.
Anime B&B 
I still use my old Badtz-Maru sunglasses case, even though it is thoroughly beaten up, scratched, and dented.
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Awww, I like that! I’m actually always on the lookout for a cute glasses case, and that’s awesome you’ve kept yours for so long.
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I have two intersections with Hello Kitty which will seem weird. I’ll admit that I never really ‘got’ it when I was growing up (unlike most things, Hello Kitty has been pretty much unchanged even since I was a kid), but I understand it a lot more now.
One of the things is that we used to have a black cat (named Penske), who looked *very* similar to Chococat. Which we didn’t know about until we saw some Chococat merchandise and thought “That looks exactly like our cat!” We still have a plush, an area rug, and some other Chococat things that remind us of that cat at times.
The other thing is that my dad really likes Hello Kitty and thinks it’s amazingly cute. To the point of asking to see waitresses and passersby’s items. I have no idea where that came from, but if it’s out of the ordinary for a 45 year old guy (me) to like stuff like that, it’s probably even more out of the ordinary for a 70+ year old guy to.
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I love that you shared these stories! Your connection to Chococat is somewhat similar to my current preference for Pompompurin–my family has always had labs growing up, and he reminds me of the yellow lab of my high school days, though I know Pompompurin is actually a golden retriever. Chococat is also pretty cute, and it makes me giggle thinking about your dad liking other Hello Kitty goods. Sanrio really is cross-cultural and cross-generational.
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Heh, it’s even weirder for me to think about my dad liking Hello Kitty because he wasn’t interested in that at all when I lived with him. It’s only been in the last maybe decade. But it’s definitely a thing. I don’t know if he has a favorite character, or just likes most of them.
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I know if my dad revealed ANY type of cute-sy or anime fandom, I would be completely floored.
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