u/miscellaneousworms

It's pretty rare to see Chococat merch in Japan where he is somewhat obscure, so I was delighted to find this pop-up store at Tokyo station!

from the official Japanese pompompurin account on Twitter

The Japan Railways was doing a campaign where you can get a sticker for visiting five stations in Tokyo! The big plush in the first pic was temporarily displayed in Tachikawa station.

Japanese sanrio fan here. Pretty shocked to find out Gudetama's official account on Twitter just decided to cash in on a transphobic Internet meme.

The post reads "自認ぐでたまの人～？" ("Anyone who identifies as Gudetama?"). 自認〇〇 is a phrase that has caught on in Japan for the last few years as a mockery of transgender people identifying as their own gender, sort of the Japanese equivalent of the "I identify as an attack helicopter" meme.

I'm not even sure the creators behind Gudetama were aware of the phrase's transphobic origin because its use has been utterly normalized on the Japanese-speaking Internet these days, but as a non-binary person myself, I'm just...flabbergasted to say the least.

(posted here as I wasn't sure how accommodating other sanrio related subs were for posts like this. Sorry if this ruins your day)

Original post: https://x.com/gudetama_sanrio/status/2094591112593965274