comics

I went to shopping mall in Hirakata last weekend, and I found interesting thing. There were many foods which were covered with animation characters’ plastic bag. Some of those are come from foreign countries. For example, comic of peanuts was born in America in 1950. It was written by Charles M Schulz. It have been really popular in the world and comic of peanuts was published totally more than three billion copies.

In Japan, peanuts was started to be published in 1967, translated by Shuntaro Tanikawa who is a famous writer in Japan. Japanese tend to think Snoopy is the main character of peanuts stories, because company of Sanrio sells many snoopy goods, and also peanuts’ cartoons appear Sannkei news paper on Sundays now. Peanuts’ characters entered in Universal Studio Japan, which is one of big amusement parks in Japan in 2001. Peanuts characters are really loved by many Japanese.

While peanuts become famous, those characters are used as targets of consumer by some companies. For example, Softbank which is one of Japanese cell phone companies made cell phone decorated by pictures of snoopy. It seems to target young female consumers.

Also, I went to a sweets shop in Hirakata. Almost all sweets are covered with simple case; however, a few sweets are covered by snoopy’s small plastic bag. There is not peanuts’ goods shop but they use picture of snoopy to sell sweets. I think it is interesting.

I think some comics that are from foreign countries are really popular in Japan; however they tend to be used to make a benefit by some companies. I think those comics should be used more preciously in Japan.