An Analysis of Tweets by Local Mascot Characters for
Regional Promotions, called Yuru-charas, and Their
Followers in Japan
Shohei Suzukia and Yohei KurataaaDepartment of Tourism Science, Graduate School of Urban Environmental Sciences
Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo, Japans.suzuki19900909@gmail.com

Abstract
This paper addresses an emerging pop culture trend in Japan involving yuru-charas. Yuru-charas
are local mascot characters who work for cities and prefectures and are expected to serve as new
tools for tourism promotion. Among several activities in which the yuru-charas engage, we
studied their use of Twitter for public relations. We collected the tweet data of 16 major yurucharas, as well as the data of their followers. Using three indexes for tweet data and anotherthree indexes for follower data, we analysed the characteristics of the yuru-charas’ Twitter use
and their followers. As a result, we found that the yuru-charas seem to have different policies
regarding Twitter use but the popular yuru-charas share several common characteristics.
Keywords: yuru-chara; Twitter; mascot; public relations

1 Introduction
McGray (2002) points out that Japan’s pop culture, including anime, comic books, andcharacter goods, already possesses a vast reserve of potential soft power. As for comic
books, MacWilliams (2014) notes that Japan is one of the only countries in the world
today where comic books have become a full-fledged medium of expression, on parwith novels, and seemingly read by everyone. The Japanese government starts CoolJapan Initiative, which promotes Japanese pop-culture content (e.g. anime, comics,
movies, TV programs, music, entertainment, toys, and games) in overseas countries(Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2015). Meanwhile, the use of a yuru-chara
is an emerging Japanese pop culture trend that has attracted a significant amount ofattention in Japan; however, it is not yet well-known internationally, even though theJapan Expo of 2016 held in France introduced the characters in the newly-created
YURU-CHARA SESSION (JTS Group, 2016). Yuru-charas are local mascots, usuallywith a cute and funny appearance and motions, who work for cities, villages andprefectures (in short, regions). In other words, they are expected to serve as tools forboth external and internal marketing. Etymologically speaking, a yuru-chara stands fora yuru-i (loose) character. There are a lot of these characters in Japan. Their activities,
however, as well as the underlying purpose of the yuru-chara managers (often local
governments or tourism organizations) are different from characters to character. In
addition, the degree of interest of the local residents and that of non-locals is radicallydifferent. Thus, we investigate the current situation of yuru-charas’ activities and theinterest-level of local/non-local people and based on the results, we clarify the meritsof using yuru-charas for regional promotion. Our study will be helpful in the futurewhen local governments and tourism organizations, especially in other countries,
consider introducing yuru-charas as tools for regional promotion.

2 Defining the nature of Yuru-charas
Jun Miura, a Japanese illustrator and the first advocate for the yuru-chara, set forththree necessary conditions for a mascot character to be considered a yuru-chara(Oricon Style, 2009).
 It is designed with a strong message of love for its home province;
 Its motions are lovably awkward and unique; and Its character has the yuru-sa (looseness) that people feel attached to.
As an example of a character that satisfies the above three conditions, we can look atFukka-chan, a yuru-chara from Fukaya city, Japan (Fig. 1). His horn symbolizes
Fukaya’s speciality product, green onions, for their promotion (Condition 1). Because
he has a large head and short limbs, his motions, naturally, are lovably awkward(Condition 2). Finally, his cute appearance in a vague setting – a cross between a rabbit
and a deer – satisfies Condition 3.

Fig. 1. An example of a yuru-chara: Fukka-chan from Fukaya City
Since 2011, the Yuru-chara Grand Prix has taken place annually in Japan, wherevisitors vote for the most popular yuru-chara of the year. As many as 1,722 charactersparticipated in the Fifth Grand Prix in 2015 and a total of 3,477 characters haveparticipated since its inception (Executive Committee of the Yuru-chara Grand Prix,
2016). This event, however, permits the participation of many characters that do notsatisfy the above three conditions. This means that the notion of yuru-chara is
becoming vague. Thus, this study re-defines a yuru-chara by considering thedifferences between yuru-charas and other mascot characters.
Disney characters and Pokémon characters are typical examples of mascot characters.
They appear in animations and video games and are commercial products themselves.
On the other hand, yuru-charas are not commercial products themselves but aremarketing tools by nature. This is the first important feature of yuru-charas.
Like Michelin’s Michelin Man and Expedia’s Exbear, some mascot characters owned
by companies are also used as marketing tools. These company characters are
considered yuru-charas in a broader sense. Indeed, TripAdvisor’s Owly entered the2015 Yuru-chara Grand Prix. As Jun Miura advocates, however, yuru-charas in theoriginal sense are characters for promoting particular regions, not companies. Thus, weconsider that locality is another essential feature of yuru-charas.
Based on the above considerations, we re-define yuru-charas as follows:Yuru-charas are cute mascot characters for the promotion of regions, notably for thepromotion of their local products and/or tourism in the region.
Some researchers study the commercial and non-commercial effects of Yuru-charas aswell as their features. For example, Kaneko (2013) insists that Japanese pop culture
may play an effective role in marketing tourism, studying the yuru-chara of Hikone
city, Hiko-nyan, as a typical case of this type of economic success. Kaneko concludes
that Hiko-nyan’s great success inspired many cites, organizations, companies, andcommunity groups to create their own yuru-charas. Yamamura (2015) studied an event
hosted by Saitama prefecture where many yuru-charas across Japan got together aspart of a unique tourism-related policy of the local government. He reported that the
number of visitors for this event increased from 50,000 in 2010 to 410,000 in 2014.
Jiyavorananda et al. (2015) insisted that yuru-sa in the Japanese language is a vague
concept, even though it is an essential feature of yuru-chara, and revealed by factor
analysis that friendliness and childlikeness are closely related to yuru-sa. Birkett(2012) conducted an interview survey on yuru-chara managers and staff and reported
that yuru-charas are allowed to make mistakes due to their childlikeness and,accordingly, the actors behind them do not need to be professionals. This is an
important point for many organizations that lack a sufficient budget for alternative
promotion mechanisms.
In the field of entertainment computing, Hotogi and Hagiwara (2015) developed ayuru-chara generator based on an analysis of yuru-charas’ physical features such aseyes and mouths.
Among many yuru-charas, the most successful is probably Kumamoto prefecture’s
Kumamon. Kumamon is the champion of the first Yuru-chara Grand Prix of 2011. In
2015, the total sales of Kumamon-related products recorded one-hundred billion yen(around 990 million US dollars), including 2.1 billion yen in overseas markets,
especially Hong-Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand (Kumamoto Prefecture, 2016). Horita(2014) studied the administration of Kumamon from the viewpoint of the businessecosystem and revealed that Kumamon plays an important role in regional promotion
and development both in and out of the region. He insists that other yuru-charas shouldplay such a role.
Promotion and communication with fans on a Social Networking Service (SNS) arealso important missions of yuru-charas. In Japan, many yuru-charas have their own
SNS accounts, especially on Twitter and Facebook. Because SNS allows marketing
managers to communicate with many people without spending much time and money,
it is used not only as a promotion tool to non-local consumers but also a tool ofcommunicating with local residents (Suzuki and Morimoto, 2014). This implies thatSNS can be a tool for Yuru-charas to conduct marketing for people in and out of theregion. It is not clear, however, how yuru-charas make use of SNS today and whattypes of people are attracted to yuru-charas’ activities on SNS. Thus, focusing on
Twitter as an SNS, where interactive communication between users often takes place,
this paper analyses yuru-charas’ use of Twitter and the characteristics of theirfollowers.

3 Research Method
We collected Twitter data related to yuru-charas using Twitter API. First, we listed all
26 yuru-charas who won first through tenth prize in any Yuru-chara Grand Prix from2011 to 2015. Among these 26 yuru-charas, 17 characters have Twitter accounts but
one account was stopped. Thus, we selected the remaining group of 16 characters(Table 1) as the target of our study.
Before explaining the analysis method, we will discuss the name and appearance of theyuru-charas. Typically, yuru-charas are named and designed according to thefollowing three elements: i) the name of the region to which the yuru-chara belongs, ii)
the region’s speciality product, and iii) the name of a famous person/animal related to
the region. For example, Kumamon belongs to Kumamoto prefecture and accordingly,
its name includes the word kuma (bear) and looks like a bear. Ehime prefecture’s
Mican is named and designed after the region’s speciality product, the mikan (orange)
and looks like an orange. Finally, Shizuoka prefecture’s Ieyasu-kun is named anddesigned after Ieyasu Tokugawa, who governed Japan in the 17th century and spent his
youth and senior years in this region. Typically, through these names and appearances,people learn the name, speciality, and/or history of the region.
3.1 Analysis of tweets
We collected the tweets posted by each yuru-chara and analysed the content (text andphotographs). We collected the tweets from the oldest through June 30, 2016 (note that
Twitter API allows us to collect the most recent 3,200 tweets for each account). Then,
we calculated the following three indexes to analyse the yuru-charas’ tweets.
Replay rate. The reply rate of a yuru-chara’s account is defined as the number ofhis/her reply tweets over the number of his/her total tweets. While ordinary tweets aresent to anonymous people, reply tweets indicate interactive communication withspecific users. The reply rate is expected to indicate how actively each yuru-characommunicates with his/her followers and other Twitter users.
Photograph rate. The photograph rate of a yuru-chara’s account is defined as thenumber of photograph-attached tweets over the total number of tweets (except reply
tweets). The attachment of photographs to SNS posts evokes more interest fromviewers and increases the number of reactions (e.g., retweets and like-button clicks)(Burkhalter, 2015; Rogers, 2014; Ross, 2014). Meanwhile, it requires more work to
prepare a photograph for a tweet. Thus, the photograph rate is expected to indicate theeagerness of each yuru-chara on Twitter.
Notice rate. The notice rate of a yuru-chara’s account is defined as the number ofnotice tweets over the number of total tweets (except reply tweets). The main content
of yuru-charas’ tweets is in the form of activity reports (or diary entries), which areusually posted after an event. The yuru-charas who post notice of events and thecontents of activities beforehand are considered active in their promotion activities on
Twitter. We manually identify these notice tweets by looking for future dates
expressed in the tweets.

8(2013)

Yamaguchi pref. Fukuoka pref.

Affiliation
regionHighest rank 2(2012)(Year)

Shippei

Kawarimisenbei

Choruru

Name

Mican

2
(2014)

9(2013)

2(2015)

Iwata
Ehime pref.
(Shizuoka pref.)3(2011)

4(2015)

Susaki(Kochi pref.)Shinjyo-kun

9(2011)

Nishikokubunji Fukaya
Minoh(Tokyo pref.)(Saitama pref.) (Osaka pref.)Takinomichi
YuzuruImabari(Ehime pref.)1(2012)

Kumamoto pref

Affiliation
regionFukka-chan

Nishiko-kun

Bary-sanHighest rank 1(2011)(Year)

Kumamon

Name

Table 1. Profiles of our target study group5(2014)Uji(Kyoto pref.)O-ujicha-ma

1(2013)

Sano(Tochigi pref.)Sanomaru

Tochisuke

1(2015)

Hamamatsu(Shizuoka pref.)Ieyasu-kun

5(2015)

6(2015)

Oyabe
Tochigi(Toyama pref.) (Tochigi pref.)Merugyu-kun

6(2012)

Shimane pref.

Shimanekko

3.2 Analysis of Followers
We collected data on the followers of each yuru-chara’s account and analysed it. The
data was collected on July 1, 2016. The follower data contains various items, among
which, we used the location and description. The location was found in texts that
expressed each follower’s self-reported place of residence. The description was foundin texts that expressed each follower’s self-introduction. With these two items, we
calculated the following three indexes:
Ratio of local followers. The ratio of local followers of a yuru-chara’s account isdefined as the number of local followers who presumably live in the region that the
yuru-chara promotes over the total number of its followers. This index is expected toindicate how much interest each yuru-chara attracts from local residents.
Unfortunately, Twitter does not have a specific format for the location item andaccordingly, we cannot apply the raw location data to the analysis. Thus, we manually
identified from location expressions the county of the follower’s residence and, if it
was Japan, his/her prefecture as well and the identified country/prefecture to calculate
the ratio of local followers. If multiple countries/prefectures were identified, thefollower’s place of residence was categorized as unclassifiable.
Ratio of official-account followers. The ratio of official-account followers of a yuruchara’s account is defined as the number of its official-account followers who use
official accounts over the total number of followers. This index indicates the degree of
non-personal followers such as companies and shops. Twitter verifies official accounts
and Twitter API allows us to see whether or not an account is verified. However, many
official accounts have not applied for Twitter verification. For example, the Twitter
accounts of the 16 yuru-charas we analysed were claimed to be official accounts on
their official websites but only two of them (Kumamon and Takinomichi Yuzuru) havebeen verified by Twitter. Thus, we simply consider all accounts with the description
koshiki (meaning ‘official’ in English) to be official accounts.
Ratio of non-Japanese followers. The ratio of non-Japanese followers of a yuruchara’s account is the number of followers who presumably live outside of Japan over
the total number of followers. This index was calculated to measure the yuru-chara’s
popularity. We also look at the countries that show interest in each yuru-chara.
3.3 Classification of Yuru-charas
Finally, we categorize the 16 yuru-charas using the content-related indexes in Section
3.1 and the follower-related indexes in Section 3.2. As a method of categorization, we
adopted Multi-dimensional Scaling (MDS). MDS is a method to position target items
in a low-dimensional space (usually 2D or 3D) based on a dissimilarity matrix (Borgand Groenen, 2005). A pair of items with low dissimilarity (i.e., similar items) areplaced nearby, while those with high dissimilarity are placed further away. Thus, the2D/3D plot gives us insight into inter-item similarities. We also standardized all items
beforehand in order to remove the scale effect.

4 Results
Table 2 shows the contents of tweets and characteristics of followers of the 16 yurucharas listed in Table 1, which form the target group for our analysis.

72.8%
28.0%
70.0%

28.3%

55.3%

96.4%

3.4%

84.2%

0.0%

78.0%

97.7%

0.0%

92.3%

14.4%

25.1%

10.3%

Nishiko-kun

Fukka-chan

Takinomichi Yuzuru 13.1%

13.3%

Bary-sanSanomaru

Shimanekko

Ieyasu-kun

Choruru

Kawarimisenbei

Shippei

Mican

Shinjyo-kun

O-ujicha-ma

Merugyu-kun

Tochisuke
54.2%

20.2%

33.4%

55.6%

0.1%

98.7%

93.7%

88.9%

63.9%

52.6%

60.5%

79.9%

95.8%

65.2%

Kumamon

Photo
graph
rate

Reply
rate

Name

Tweets

12.2%

3.0%

12.0%

6.0%

8.2%

16.0%

1.1%

13.9%

11.7%

5.4%

10.7%

8.0%

18.4%

4.3%

1.5%

2.7%

Notice
rate

1,643

2,502

6,151

20,255

5,536

12,457

6,600

4,600

14,322

53,981

11,397

17,141

53,97752,768190,282

497,270

44.2%

25.2%

24.1%

13.3%

34.9%

45.7%

23.4%

39.2%

52.0%

13.8%

18.7%

41.1%

30.2%

41.6%

11.6%

9.4%

5.3%

4.5%

1.2%

1.0%

9.3%

1.8%

2.0%

6.3%

0.2%

0.1%

3.9%

1.6%

4.1%

0.2%

0.3%

0.2%

Number Ratio ofRatio ofof
Local
OfficialFollowers Followers accountFollowers

Followers

0.9%

1.7%

1.7%

1.5%

1.4%

1.8%

0.9%

1.2%

1.0%

1.5%

1.4%

1.2%

1.8%

1.1%

3.0%

13.1%

Ratio of
NonJapanese
Followers

2.90%

0.60%

1.60%

6.90%

5.60%

10.20%

TochigiToyama

Kyoto

Kochi

Ehime

Shizuoka

Fukuoka

1.60%

0.90%

2.10%

1.10%

1.10%

2.90%

4.00%

Yamaguchi 1.10%

Shizuoka

ShimaneTochigi

Osaka

Saitama

Tokyo

Ehime

1.10%

Kumamoto 1.40%

80.2** p < 0.001

85.0*

71.2*

91.7*

136.7*

151.3*

45.7*

133.0*

204.6*

207.6*

73.1*

97.5*

118.4*

130.3*

212.8*

224.0*

Prefecture Ratio of
Z-ScorePrefectural
Population

Table 2. Contents of tweets and characteristics of followers of the 16 yuru-charas

4.1 Analysis of Yuru-chara Tweets
Table 2 summarizes the results of the three tweet indexes we calculated. The reply
rates of Fukka-chan, Shippei, and Shinjyo-kun were over 90%, while those of Choruru
and Mican were 0%. This contrasting result indicates that some yuru-charas have aclear policy of active reply or non-reply. Photograph rates for the 16 characters weregenerally high with a mean of 60.5% and a median of 62.2%, with the exception of
Mican at 0.1%. Notice rates were generally low and the highest was that of Fukka-chan(18.4%). Most of the tweets other than notice tweets were activity reports from eachyuru-chara.
4.2 Analysis of Followers
The total number of followers of the 16 yuru-charas’ accounts was 982,040 and thenumber is reduced to 701,150 when we exclude overlaps. Among the 701,150
followers, 312,788 report their locations (45%) but the identification of area ofresidence was successful for only 191,132 followers (27%).
Table 2 shows the results of the three follower indexes we calculated. First, ratio of
local followers depends on the yuru-chara. Precisely speaking, we had to takepopulation into account. For example, Nishiko-kun’s ratio of local followers is high(41.6%) but this may simply be because it is from Tokyo, which has the largest
population among all prefectures in Japan. Thus, we calculated the significance of theratio of local followers using hypothesis testing for the population proportion. In thisstatistical test, we use the following Z-Score:Z0 | p  P0 |P0( 1  P0 )/n(1)where p is the ratio of local followers, P0 is the ratio of prefectural population to
Japan’s total population and n is the number of Japanese followers. The test results
show that for every character, the ratio of the local followers is significantly larger than
the ratio of the prefectural population to Japan’s total population. The yuru-chara withthe largest Z-sore (i.e., the yuru-chara followed by the most local people considering
population) was Kumamon and that with the smallest Z-score was Kawarimisenbei. A
possible reason why Kawarimisenbei is not followed by local people, relatively
speaking, is that this character is not managed by a public organization such as a local
government but by a company (a local food manufacturer).
Second, ratios of official-account followers were less than 10% for all yuru-charas(Table 2) and the ratios for Kumamon, Bary-san, Nishiko-kun, Shimanekko, andIeyasu-kun were as low as less than 0.3%. Meanwhile, Mican had the highest rate of
official-account followers.
Third, the ratios of non-Japanese followers were not much different among the yurucharas with one exception: Kumamon (13.1%). We calculated the proportion of theresidential locations of the non-Japanese followers of the 16 yuru-charas. The country
with the highest number of followers was Taiwan (39%), followed by Thailand (18%),
China (12%), Hong Kong (7%) and USA (7%).The popularity in Taiwan is probably
due to active promotion targeting Taiwanese by Kumamon. In addition, because all of

the tweets of the yuru-charas are in Japanese, countries with a larger number of people
who understand Japanese will likely have a larger number of yuru-chara followers.
This implies that in order to acquire international followers, each yuru-chara must
tweet in non-Japanese languages as well.
4.3 Classification of Yuru-charas
Using MDS, we made a two-dimensional scatter plot that indicates similarities between
yuru-charas (Fig. 2). In this plot, Mican and Fukka-chan are distanced from othercharacters, which implies the peculiarity of these two characters. The most successful
yuru-chara, Kumamon, is located in the first quadrant of the graph and Bary-san and
Ieyasu-kun are located relatively near Kumamon. In addition, Nishiko-kun andShimanekko, both located in the graph’s first quadrant, are considered to have similar
index values related to Twitter. Among the distances between each pair of yuru-charas,
the distance between Kawarimisenbei and Shinjyo-kun is the shortest, which implies
that this pair is the most similar in terms of Twitter use. Similarly, Sanomaru is locatednear Choruru and O-ujicha-ma, which implies their similarity. Unfortunately, however,
the graph does not help us to categorize yuru-charas.

5 Discussion
We analysed the Twitter use and characteristics of followers of major yuru-charas,
using the six indexes introduced in Section 3. Based on our results, especially the
results of the MDS plot in Section 4.3, this chapter discusses the characteristics of eachyuru-chara.
First, we examine the features of two yuru-charas that are remotely located in the
MDS plot; Mican and Fukka-chan. Mican shows the lowest reply and photograph rates,
which indicate Mican’s negative attitude toward Twitter use. Indeed, Mican attracts asmall number of followers (5,563 followers), even though it has won second place in a
Yuru-chara Grand Prix. Conversely, Fukka-chan shows very high reply andphotograph rates, which indicate his positive attitude toward Twitter use. Indeed,
Fukka-chan attracts the fourth largest number of followers among the 16 yuru-charas(53,977 followers). Among the top five yuru-charas with more than 50,000 followers,
however, he is the only one located at the left side of the MDS plot. This is due to his
distinctively high notice rate. We discuss the meaning of high/low notice rates below.
Next, we examine the features of several yuru-charas who have similarities to the mostpopular yuru-chara, Kumamon. Bary-san has similar features to Kumamon except his
low reply rate. Ieyasu-kun has similar features to Kumamon except his high notice rate.
Both Bary-san and Ieyasu-kun are popular characters, having won the first prize in a
Yuru-chara Grand Prix. In addition, Nishiko-kun and Shimanekko, who are located in
the first quadrant of the MDS plot with Kumamon, are among the top five popularcharacters in terms of follower number. Among the six indexes we proposed, we
observed a remarkable difference in the notice rates between these popular yuru-charas
and others. At first, we expected that yuru-charas would have high notice rates because
their mission is regional promotion. In reality, however, popular yuru-charas have low
notice rates. This is probably because consumers want yuru-charas to speak asthemselves, instead of speaking directly about regional promotions. In other words,

like Disney characters, yuru-charas themselves attract fans and become icons withcommercial value. This contradicts the definition of yuru-charas in Section 2 andmakes the concept vague.

Fig. 2. Similarities between the yuru-charas based on our Twitter findings

6 Conclusions and Future WorkYuru-charas have begun to be used for regional promotion in Japan and many yurucharas are making use of SNS. However, it is not clear why they use SNS. Thus, first
we studied yuru-charas’ use of Twitter and the characteristics of their followers.
Our results show that yuru-charas generally have many followers, including both fansof the characters and fans of the yuru-charas’ regions. Thus, by using yuru-charaname accounts, public relations messages can even reach people who are not interested

in the region and accordingly, they may eventually become fans of the region. In
addition, because yuru-charas have many local followers, yuru-chara-name accounts
can be used as tools for internal marketing. For example, local organizations thatmanage yuru-charas, such as local governments and tourism organizations, can ask
local residents to participate in local festivals and events as volunteers or inform themof local attractions by using the yuru-charas’ tweets. In this way, yuru-charas canlikely contribute to regional development and promotion as marketing tools.
Meanwhile, local organizations will often have yuru-chara-name accounts as well as
formal/official accounts. It is still not clear why some local organizations use two
accounts or when and why they choose to conduct public relations activities under thename of the yuru-chara instead of the formal/official account.
There are likely several reasons why yuru-chara-name accounts work better thanformal/official accounts. First, as our study clarified, it is very possible that yuruchara-name accounts’ public relations activities reach many non-local people. Second,yuru-chara-name accounts can communicate with followers interactively on Twitter.
This interactive communication is difficult through formal/official accounts because
public organizations, including those who manage yuru-charas, are required to provide
strictly factual information on their formal/official accounts. Third, once a yuruchara’s way of talking and personality is established, the yuru-chara’s tweet style israrely influenced by a change of operators or a change in management.
Due to these reasons, it is likely that the number of local organizations who use yuruchara-name accounts will rapidly increase. In order to confirm this, further studies areneeded. To this end, we should compare the characteristics of the followers offormal/official accounts and those of yuru-chara-name accounts. In addition, in order
to see the interactiveness, replies to the followers on the formal accounts and those on
the yuru-chara-name accounts should be compared. Of course, we should alsointerview the local organizations regarding their strategies for Twitter use.
Recently, yuru-charas (or yuru-chara-like mascot characters) have been created inmany countries other than Japan. For example, Xochimilco, Mexico has created Lupita,a funny-looking character that is modelled after a Mexican salamander. Berlin,
Germany has BearlinTower, which is modelled after the Berlin Tower and a white bear.
Big Lincoln, modelled after Abraham Lincoln, promotes the State of Illinois in theUSA. Likely, many yuru-charas will be created in various countries in the future. The
above studies, which clarifies the benefits and potential issues of yuru-chara-name
Twitter accounts, will be useful for regional promotion organizations in various
countries to discuss the future use of yuru-charas and SNS public relations under thename of the respective yuru-charas.

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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the mangers of the yuru-charas listed in Table 1 who permitted
us to use the illustrations of the yuru-charas in this paper. In addition, copyright of theillustrations of yuru-charas and/or licence number are as follows:
Kumamon: ©2010 kumamoto pref. Kumamon. Fukka-chan: ©Fukaya City.
Takinomichi Yuzuru: license no.275. Sanomaru: ©2011 Sano city Sanomaru. Shimane
Tourism Mascot "shimanekko": license agreement SHIMAKANREN No.3794.
Daimyo of Success, Ieyasu Kun: ©2011 Hamamatsu City. Choruru: ©Yamaguchi
prefecture., license no.100-75. Shippei: ©Iwata City. Mican: ©2011 ehime pref. mican,
license no.2810012. Merugyu-kun: ©OYABE CITY 2008, license no.219. Tochisuke:©2014 Tochigi City Tochisuke.