Sanrio*

**Sanrio Company, Ltd.** (株式会社サンリオ, *Kabushikigaisha Sanrio*) is a Japanese entertainment company. It designs, licenses, and produces products focusing on the *kawaii* ("cute") segment of Japanese popular culture. Their products include stationery, school supplies, gifts, and accessories which are sold worldwide, including at specialty brand retail stores in Japan. Sanrio's best-known character is Hello Kitty, a little cartoon girl cat and one of the most successful marketing brands in the world.

Besides selling character goods, Sanrio takes part in film production and publishing. They own the rights to the *Mr. Men* characters and Japanese licensing rights to the *Peanuts* characters. Their animatronics branch, called Kokoro Company, Ltd. (*kokoro* being Japanese for 'heart') is best known for the Actroid android. The company also runs a franchise of KFC in Saitama Prefecture.

## History

Sanrio store in Den-en-chōfu, Ōta, Tokyo
Shintaro Tsuji founded Sanrio on August 10, 1960, then known as the **Yamanashi Silk Company** using ¥1,000,000 in capital. In 1962, Tsuji expanded his enterprise from silk to rubber sandals with flowers painted on them. Tsuji noticed his success gained by merely adding a cute design to the sandals. He began using existing cartoon characters for his merchandise. In the late 1960s the company began producing goods with the dog character Snoopy, from the American comic strip *Peanuts*, after acquiring the Japanese licensing rights.

In 1973 the company was officially established under the name Sanrio. In the book *Kore ga Sanrio no Himitsu Desu* (これがサンリオの秘密です) or *These are Sanrio's Secrets* Tsuji, Sanrio's founder, said that *Yamanashi* (山梨), part of the company's former name, has an alternative on'yomi reading of *Sanri*. The remaining *o* was added from the *ou* (オウ) sound people make when they are excited. The company's European website gives another origin of the name, saying the name comes from the Spanish words *san* ('holy') and *río* ('river').

Tsuji hired his own designers to create characters for Sanrio, to not have to pay outside royalty fees. The first original Sanrio character, Coro Chan, was introduced in 1973. Hello Kitty was added to the lineup of early Sanrio characters in 1974 and the first related merchandise was released the following year. The popular feline whose mouth is usually invisible has had both peaks and drops in sales over the years, but always has been the highest contributor to Sanrio's sales. Sanrio constantly adds new characters to its lineup. Specific characters are rotated in and out of active production. For a short time, Osamu Tezuka's baby unicorn character Unico, who starred in two feature-length anime movies in the early 1980s, was also part of the Sanrio's lineup; however the rights to Unico shifted to Osamu Tezuka's own company after Tezuka's death in 1989.

In late 2003, Sanrio won the "Top Brand with a Conscience" award from the Medinge Group of Sweden for its communication principles. The company has partnered with UNICEF since 1984. In 2006, Sanrio launched Sanrio Digital together with Typhoon Games to expand to the Internet, online games, and mobile services. 2010 was Sanrio's 50th anniversary. In conjunction with this, Build-A-Bear Workshop released limited edition stuffed toys of several Sanrio characters, including Hello Kitty, Chococat, My Melody and Keroppi.

Hello Kitty is alleged to be drawn in a similar style to the rabbit Miffy. On August 26, 2010, Mercis BV, representing Miffy's creator Dick Bruna brought suit against Sanrio. They claimed that one of Hello Kitty's companion characters, a rabbit named Cathy, infringes on the copyright and trademark of Miffy. On November 2, 2010, a Dutch court ruled against Sanrio and ordered the company to stop marketing Cathy products in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Following the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Sanrio and Mercis reached an out-of-court settlement on June 7, 2011, for Sanrio to halt production worldwide of merchandise that feature Cathy. They also jointly announced a €150,000 donation to earthquake victims.

In December 2011, Sanrio Global acquired the rights to the *Mr. Men* characters, which includes the subsidiary Mr Men Films Ltd, taking over Chorion's THOIP company.

In 2019 the European Commission fined Sanrio 6.2 million euros (approx. 6.9 million US dollars) for blocking cross-border sales of its licensed products.

In June 2020, it was announced that the company's founder and President, Shintaro Tsuji would step down from the role and hand control of the company to his grandson, Tomokuni Tsuji. Shintaro Tsuji ran the company for 60 years.

## Locations

Sanrio Inc. headquarters in South San Francisco
Sanrio Inc. is Sanrio's American subsidiary. Sanrio Inc. has offices in South San Francisco, California, and Torrance, California. Sanrio's first Western Hemisphere store opened in San Jose's Eastridge Mall. In 2008, Sanrio opened its high-end boutique called *Sanrio Luxe* in New York City's Times Square. In the Western Hemisphere, Sanrio character-branded products are sold in upwards of 13,000 locations including department, specialty, national chain stores and over 85 Sanrio boutiques. In April 2010, the first and only Sanrio-licensed eatery (Sanrio Cafe) in the U.S. opened at Pearlridge's Downtown phase in Aiea, Hawaii.

In 2004, Sanrio Co. Ltd., expanded its license to one of its major licensee and plush suppliers Nakajima USA to include the owning and operating of all Sanrio branded stores in the US, overseeing the relationships between individual licensed stores and supplying all categories of products for the retail stores in the US and wholesale accounts.

Sanrio hosts two theme parks in Japan, Sanrio Puroland in Tama, Tokyo, and Harmonyland in Hiji, Ōita, Kyūshū.

## Character

Sanrio has created a large number of characters, the best known of which is Hello Kitty. Other well known characters include My Melody, Keroppi, Bad Badtz-Maru, Cinnamoroll, Jewelpet, Gudetama, and Aggressive Retsuko.