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Hello Kitty Destroys Tokyo
Sanrio's hyper-cute money maker possesses three foot body
by Roshan Abraham | 07.12.2004 ReadMe | Print it.
It cowers over you at a staggering 52 centimeters. It can recognize your face and your voice. It speaks to you: "It's already lunchtime. Have you eaten yet?" Before the morbidly blank and featureless metal demons of Asimov's I, Robot descend upon you or Will Smith's futuristic police vehicles, Sanrio's Hello Kitty will emerge from your child's bedroom; hyperadaptable, armed with brainmelting catchphrases, and dripping with cutesiness so raw and endearing it sets your clothes on fire and makes you blush and giggle in a high pitched school-girl's squeal.

The Hello Kitty robot is released in stores in Japan November 1st, in celebration of the character's 30th anniversary. As the years go by, Hello Kitty has grown more and more ubiquitous. The familiar overfed cat appears on pens and pencilcases usually in some poorly chosen bright pink ensemble. A useful survival tactic, the Hello Kitty has camouflaged itself, blending into the backpacks of giddy schoolchildren on their way to school. The Hello Kitty robot, however, marks the creature's real-life emergence into a progressively larger and more violent model. Future models may tower as much as 10 or 30 stories high and shoot fireballs from their eyes.
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