A Hello Kitty Invasion Is Happening On The Streets Of Indonesia

People in Indonesia are crazy about anything and everything 'kawaii,' an adjective in Japanese that means cute, charming, or pretty, and is usually associated with depressed eggs and manga culture. The current invasion of Japanese culture has taken the streets on four wheels, with many cars donning Hello Kitty livery; promoting the small cat-like character with massive decals, toys, and stickers. Hello Kitty is cute, but rarely has a phenomenon so powerfully dominated the roads of Indonesia.

Lengga Mardiani supplies vinyl wraps for cars in Bandung, he said interest in the Hello Kitty prints took off in 2015. "We are working on about 15 cars a month" Lengga said. "Other sticker types, like those that make a car look more sporty are still selling, but when compared with cartoon characters, Hello Kitty is the most popular design."

Hello Kitty madness has grown to such proportions that Sanrio is building a Hello Kitty theme park in North Jakarta, which is predicted to draw over 3 million visitors a year.

If you compare it to other Japanese cultural exports like Pokémon or Doremon, you rarely see the same sort of devotion given to other characters. Last year Pokémon was a global phenomenon thanks to Pokémon Go, it became the highest search term in all of Indonesia, yet you rarely even see a Pikachu bumper sticker.

If nothing is done about the Hello Kitty invasion, the number of cars in Hello Kitty prints might one day outnumber those with Taman Safari stickers.

Created in 1974 by Japanese design company Sanrio, Hello Kitty has been an unstoppable tour de force of money and power since she launched, spawning countless offical and unofficial products like hamburgers and even tombstones. Today, Hello Kitty has grown into a $7 billion empire.

In spite of no official presence of Sanrio in Indonesia, the cute character (which looks like a cat but is actually a little girl born in London) has a long history in the country. "Unofficially, Sanrio has been here since the 80's, and they're pretty aggressive, Sanrio has adjusted their style to adapt to changing times. The 90's were the peak of their popularity, the little girl suddenly became famous," said Rizki Musthafa, a Japanese pop culture researcher at the University of Indonesia.

While Hello Kitty is a character targeted toward girls, it was a group of men who founded the Hello Kitty Loves Indonesia fan club in September 2012. Diana Mariana, one of the group's community coordinators, says Hello Kitty does not represent a specific gender. "Everybody loves Hello Kitty. Kids, elderly and men, women, all sexes love Hello Kitty. You can see it every time we hold a meeting, boys, kids, and even the elderly attend," Mariana said.

With its playful but somewhat androgynous design (I mean, is it even a girl?), Hello Kitty can serve as a way to escape rigid gender constructs. It's a cute and fun way to explore your sensitive side. "People are still stuck in the binary of men and women, and they're still judged based by their appearance. Those in the middle of the spectrum often face obstacles in our society," Musthafa said.

The Hello Kitty phenomenon has even worked its way into daytime television. One of the most popular television shows in Indonesia, Surga yang Kedua (Second Heaven) famously weaved in a major plot point around Hello Kitty and sparked a meme. A man's mistress on the show went by the pseudonym 'Hello Kitty,' and in a dramatic twist, the man's scorned wife boils a Hello Kitty doll, to the horror of the entire family.

Ui Birowo, a Hello Kitty mega fan, admitted he was upset about all the Hello Kitty abuse. "Poor 'Kitty being boiled. I didn't see the episode, but I if I did, I would be very angry. I would look for the producer, I would like to file a complaint. What did poor Hello Kitty do to deserve such torture?"

All this attention has started to give the character a bad rap. After the episode came out, Hello Kitty has become synonymous with cheating and affairs among Indonesia's housewives, leading some to believe that the fad might be fizzing out. Musthafa explained, "The way I see it, there's many reasons for the current negative stigma around Hello Kitty. Society doesn't necessarily judge Hello Kitty, but the show itself. Hello Kitty became a meme, I'm not sure if people actually cared that much about Hello Kitty, but once the video spread on social media, there was no way to escape the bad reputation. Hello Kitty's image will be ruined."