Japan has some really weird character mascots, and even Sanrio, the company known for the internationally kawaii character Hello Kitty also already has some pretty weird kawaii characters. But back in 2013, someone at Sanrio was like “You know what we need? We need a character thats an egg! But get this, it should have a butt too!! And it needs to be lazy!” And that’s (probably) how Gudetama came to exist in this world.

What actually happened is that Sanrio held a competition in Japan for a new food based character, and though Gudetama only came second Sanrio still produced goods for the little egg, and they were a huge hit! So Gudetama quickly rose to fame. The gude(ぐで) of Gudetama’s name actually means lazy in Japanese and the tama is taken from tamago(卵) which means egg. Japan loves to eat eggs raw, poached, fried you name it! And Gudetama can be found in all of these forms. Gudetama’s laziness is also extremely relatable so its no wonder it’s crazy popular! Japan also has an obsession with butts for some reason and many kawaii characters either have plump buttocks or *cough* butt holes drawn on them. Why? We wish we knew… Though Gudetama’s butt is rather cute and hilarious at the same time.

Butt (haha see what I did there), you may have noticed a strange man clad in a skintight yellow suit hanging around Gudetama! Who is he? His name is Nisetama-san, nise coming from the Japanese word nisemono (偽物) for fake and again tama meaning egg. Nisetama-san’s name may give you a clue to his origin but basically, he’s a man that was so enamored with the kawaii Gudetama who he encountered so frequently that he began dreaming he was Gudetama and somehow these delusions became reality! Bizarre life choices there Nisetama-san but who are we to judge?

Gudetama even has his own theme song in which Nisetama-san shows you some smooth moves to go along with the song~ Better get practicing those moves guys!

Gudetama’s popularity in Japan is such where even one of Tokyo’s train lines decorated Shibuya Station with lots of Gudetamas! Recently we even visited a special limited edition Gudetama Cafe which was space themed for Gudetama’s 5th anniversary!

What do you think of Gudetama? Is he your fave kawaii Japanese character or is there a character you like even better? Let us know in the comments!

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