50 years of 'deception'... Hello Kitty is not a cat!

In 2024, Hello Kitty is 50 years old. During all this time, many people assumed that ‘Hello Kitty’ was a cat. Well, that is actually not true.

"Hello Kitty is not a cat". Jill Koch, senior vice president of Marketing and Management at Sanrio, the company responsible for the well-known brand, was direct in her statement.

Photo: Henk Mohabier / Pexels

She confirmed this on the Today show where she went to celebrate the brand's 50th anniversary.

Photo: Tong Su / Unsplash

If Hello Kitty is not a cat, despite being called Kitty, what is she? A simplest answer: she's a little girl.

"She’s actually a little girl born and raised in the suburbs of London," Jill Koch says. "She has a mom and dad and a twin sister Mimmy - who is also her best friend."

The most compelling argument used by Sanrio's management is the most obvious of all: Hello Kitty walks on two legs. She has never walked on four legs, so she cannot be a cat.

Photo: Danny Howe / Unsplash

Christine Reijo Yano, an anthropologist specializing in the character, stated on Instagram that Hello Kitty is "a cartoon character, a girl, but not a cat."

Some Hello Kitty fans have distanced themselves from such a claim and maintain that, for them, she is still a cat.

At some other point, the company should explain the origin of the whiskers in Kitty's face. Are they marks of an expression? Or just really whiskers, as most people think? It is possible that they will save that response for the centenary of the firm. We'll have to wait and see.

Before then, we should ask Yuko Yamaguchi, who has been responsible for designing and drawing all kinds of merchandising related to Kitty since the beginning of the 21st century. As she told the Singapore publication Today in 2016: "I designed her to be a girl. She has a pet named Charmmy Kitty. I do not understand why Hello Kitty is perceived as a cat."

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