{"id":116,"date":"2010-12-02T20:06:45","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T04:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tsmer\/?p=116"},"modified":"2010-12-02T20:06:45","modified_gmt":"2010-12-03T04:06:45","slug":"mascots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tsmer\/2010\/12\/02\/mascots\/","title":{"rendered":"Mascots"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day, my brother mentioned this mascot that’s apparently now popular in his workplace… He called him “Sento-kun”<\/a>. And my brother was the one who introduced him to his co-workers.<\/p>\n

So who\/what is Sento-kun?<\/p>\n

Well Sento-kun is a mascot for the Japanese city of Nara. It was created to for Nara’s 1300th anniversary and is definitely a marketing strategy. Like all mascots, it was created to help promote sales which is in this case is tourism and souvenirs. Nara followed Hokkaido’s city of Kutchan’s lead, and created a mascot of their own. Where Hokkaido’s mascot is rather cute and fitting of japanese preference for cute images, Sento-kun is …. different.<\/p>\n

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Kutchan’s Jagata-Kun, the skii-ing potato<\/em><\/p>\n

There has been much controversy over Sento-kun over its image. I personally find him quite ugly. Japanese religious groups are angered over its similarities to Buddha as well. The city of Nara paid 5 million yen when commissioning this mascot! That’s about $60000 CAD! And what do they get for their money? A questionable mascot that was rather unpopular.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

Nara’s Sento-kun.. The Buddha looking person with deer antlers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Strangely enough, it is due of the fact that he’s rather hideous that Sento-kun is now well known across Japan. A rather strange outcome if i do say so myself. Tourists buy Sento-kun souvenirs because he looks odd as well! So in a way, Sento-kun WAS a success. People just do not portray him the way he was intended to be portrayed. Any publicity is good publicity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day, my brother mentioned this mascot that’s apparently now popular in his workplace… He called him “Sento-kun”. And my brother was the one who introduced him to his co-workers. So who\/what is Sento-kun? Well Sento-kun is a mascot for the Japanese city of Nara. It was created to for Nara’s 1300th anniversary and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tsmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tsmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tsmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tsmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tsmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tsmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tsmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tsmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tsmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/tsmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}