Japanese modern toys: Hello Kitty

Hello Kitty, is a fictional character produced by the Japanese company Sanrio. Designed by Ikuko Shimizu, the first product, a vinyl coin purse, was introduced in Japan in 1974, and in the United States in 1976.

The character is portrayed as a female white cat, with a red bow and no drawn mouth. She lives in London, England with her parents and twin sister.

The Hello Kitty line has since developed licensing arrangements worth more than $1 billion a year in sales. Examples of products depicting the character include dolls, stickers, greeting cards, clothes, accessories, school supplies, dishes and home appliances. Hello Kitty has an official theme park, Sanrio Puroland.

The Japanese anime series Hello Kitty and Friends aired on TV Tokyo in Japan, and CBS in the United States in 1991. It also ran in reruns on Toon Disney. On the show, Kitty is a little girl living with her mother, father, and twin sister Mimmy, who is identical to Kitty but has different colored clothes and wears her bow under the opposite ear. 13 episodes were produced, using animation produced as early as 1991.
On Japanese television, Hello Kitty has starred in an anime series. Hello Kitty's Paradise ran for 16 episodes between 1993 and 1994. This version was released in English in 2000, and like "Hello Kitty and Friends". Hello Kitty and friends also appeared in Hello Kitty's Animation Theatre, which had Hello Kitty and other Sanrio characters appearing in their versions of different fairy tales.

Hello Kitty appeared in a new Japanese clay-animated series called Hello Kitty's Stump Village in 2005. At Anime Expo 2006, Geneon Universal Entertainment announced that Hello Kitty's Stump Village was one of the series it licensed for U.S. release. Volume 1 was released in October, and Volume 2 was released in January and in 2008. After Geneon withdrew from the US market at the end of 2007, it was later re-licensed by Funimation Entertainment, who will continue to release it in North America. Hello Kitty appeared for the first time in a full 3D animation The Adventures of Hello Kitty & Friends developed by Sanrio's digital entertainment entity Sanrio Digital

Numerous Hello Kitty games have been produced since the release of the first title for NES in 1992; however, the majority of these games haven't seen a release outside of Japan. Hello Kitty also has made cameo appearances in games featuring other Sanrio characters, such as the Keroppi game, Kero Kero Keroppi no Bōken Nikki: Nemureru Mori no Keroleen. Special edition consoles such as the Hello Kitty Dreamcast, Hello Kitty Game Boy Pocket, and Hello Kitty Crystal Edition Xbox have also been released exclusively in Japan.