Hello Kitty Is ‘Not A Cat’ But ‘A Little Girl’ Creators Announce, Fans Left Shocked
Shocking details have emerged regarding Hello Kitty.
Turns out that kitty isn't a cat at all — and fans aren't happy about the groundbreaking news.
Celebrating the iconic fictional character's 50th anniversary, fans were shocked after the director of retail business development at Sanrio — a Japanese entertainment company — said she was human.
"Hello Kitty is not a cat," Jill Cook of Sanrio stated. "She's actually a little girl." The comments made on 'Today' regarding the cult-favorite 1974 Sanrio character left fans confused and feeling gaslighted.
Hello Kitty is not a cat, according to the Director of Retail Business Development at Hello Kitty’s flagship company:
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) July 18, 2024
“Hello Kitty is not a cat. She’s actually a little girl born and raised in the suburbs of London.” pic.twitter.com/4r4d6NMlJO
"Born and raised in the suburbs of London," Cook explained. "She has a mom and dad and a twin sister, Mimmy, who is also her best friend." The family also have their own pat cat named Charmmy Kitty.
The retail business director described Kitty as a "tiny little girl" who "weighs three apples" and is "five apples tall." She added that she likes "baking cookies and making new friends." The Sanrio employee and original creator of Hello Kitty, Yuko Shimizu, told 'BBC' that her design was "a white cat with a red bow in its hair."
"When I was a child, I got a small white kitten from my father for a birthday present," Shimizu said, describing the illustration she made at 24 which was inspired by her childhood. According to the news outlet, she isn't a cat. Instead she's an eight-year-old girl and she has her own pet cat.
That said — many fans didn't take the news well. "That's a full cat with whiskers and fur btw," one contrarian penned on Twitter, now known as X. "I can't believe I'm being gaslit into thinking that's not a cat. It's a cat and it's been a cat all my childhood."
There is some sort of explanation, as anthropologist and author Christine Yano claimed that Japanese women were into British lifestyles during the time the cartoon was created. "They loved the idea of Britain. It represented the quintessential idealized childhood, almost like a white picket fence. So, the biography was created exactly for the tastes of that time," she explained
"She's never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it's called Charmmy Kitty," Yano concluded.
