Sanrio

History

Sanrio was founded by Shintaro Tsuji as the Yamanashi Silk Company in 1960, using 1 million yen in capital. In 1962, Tsuji expanded his enterprise from silk to rubber sandals with flowers painted on them. Tsuji noted the profits gained by simply adding a cute design to the sandals and hired cartoonists to design cute characters for his merchandise in response. In 1973 the company was officially established under the name "Sanrio". The company's European website says the name comes from the Spanish words san (holy) and río (river.) The book korega Sanrio no himitsu desu (これがサンリオの秘密です) or This is the Sanrio Company Secret gives another origin of the name. According to this book, Tsuji, Sanrio's founder, said that Yamanashi (山梨), part of the company's former name, has an alternative on'yomi reading of sanri. The remaining o was added from the ou (オウ) sound people make when they are excited.

The company produced a line of character merchandise around gift-giving occasions. Hello Kitty was added to the lineup of early Sanrio characters in 1974 and the first related merchandise was released the following year. The popular feline whose mouth is usually invisible has had both peaks and drops in sales over the years, but always has been the highest contributor to Sanrio's sales. Other notably popular characters through the years have been The Little Twin Stars (created by Mr. Tsuji himself), My Melody, Keroppi, Tuxedo Sam, Badtz-Maru, Chococat, Cinnamoroll, Sugarbunnies, Jewelpet and Wish me mell. Sanrio constantly adds new characters to its lineup. Specific characters are rotated in and out of active production. For a short time, Osamu Tezuka's baby unicorn character Unico, who starred in two feature-length anime movies in the early 1980s, was also part of the Sanrio empire; however, the rights to Unico shifted to Osamu Tezuka's own company after Tezuka's death in 1989.

In late 2003, Sanrio won the "Top Brand with a Conscience" award from the Medinge Group of Sweden for its communication principles. The company has partnered with UNICEF since 1984. In 2006, Sanrio launched Sanrio Digital together with Typhoon Games to expand to the Internet, online games and mobile services. 2010 was Sanrio's 50th anniversary. In conjuncture with this, Build-A-Bear Workshop released limited edition stuffed toys of several Sanrio characters, including Hello Kitty, Chococat, My Melody and Keroppi.

Hello Kitty is alleged to be drawn in a similar style to the rabbit Miffy. On August 26, 2010, Mercis BV, representing Miffy's creator Dick Bruna, brought suit against Sanrio with the claim that one of Hello Kitty's companion characters, a rabbit named Cathy, infringes on the copyright and trademark of Miffy. On November 2, 2010, a Dutch court ruled against Sanrio and ordered the company to stop marketing Cathy products in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Following the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Sanrio and Mercis reached an out-of-court settlement on June 7, 2011 for Sanrio to halt production worldwide of merchandise that feature Cathy. Instead of continuing the court battle, the two companies will donate the legal fees to help the earthquake victims.

In December 2011, Sanrio Global acquired the rights to the Mr. Men and Little Miss characters which includes the subsidiary Mr Men Films Ltd.

In June 2016, it was announced that Sanrio has partnered with Loot Crate, Inc on a bi-monthly box.

Locations

Sanrio hosts two theme parks in Japan, Sanrio Puroland in Tama, Tokyo, and Harmonyland in Hiji, Ōita, Kyūshū.

Sanrio Inc. is Sanrio's American subsidiary. Sanrio Inc. has offices in South San Francisco, California and Torrance, California. Sanrio's first Western Hemisphere store opened in San Jose's Eastridge Mall. In 2008, Sanrio opened its high-end boutique called Sanrio Luxe in New York City's Times Square. In the Western Hemisphere, Sanrio character-branded products are sold in upwards of 12,000 locations including department, specialty, national chain stores and over 85 Sanrio boutiques. In April 2010, the first and only Sanrio-licensed eatery (Sanrio Cafe) in the U.S. opened at Pearlridge's Downtown phase in Aiea, Hawaii.

In 2004, Sanrio Co. Ltd., expanded its license to one of its major licensee and plush suppliers Nakajima USA to include the owning and operating of all Sanrio branded stores in the US, overseeing the relationships between individual licensed stores and supplying all categories of products for the retail stores in the US and wholesale accounts.

Characters

Sanrio has created a large number of characters, the best known of which is Hello Kitty. Other well known characters include Badtz-Maru, Chococat, My Melody and Jewelpet.

Theatrical

From 1977 to 1985, Sanrio produced movies through their Sanrio Films label. After A Journey Through Fairyland Sanrio switched gears and started doing short films, OAVs, and TV shows based on their characters. In 2006, Sanrio announced they are again going to do feature-length films.

TV animation

Sanrio also got involved into production of some TV animation during the late 1980s and early 1990s, starting with the US-made Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater in 1987. The character My Melody got her first starring role in an animated series in the TV anime, Onegai My Melody, which first aired on TV Osaka on April 3, 2005 and was produced by Studio Comet. The Sugarbunnies franchise was later adapted into a 7-minute short series in 2007, and was popular enough to gain two sequels.

Jewelpet was also adapted into an anime metaseries in 2009, which was also produced by Studio Comet, spanning 6 official seasons and one theatrical movie, making it the longest running anime adaptation of a Sanrio franchise in history.

Show by Rock!!, a game by Sanrio and Geechs got an anime adaptation produced by Bones in 2015.

Publishing

Sanrio publishes many books featuring its own characters. Additionally, they publish art books (for instance, those by Keibun Ōta) and other books. Sanrio publishes books in many different languages, including Japanese and English. Sanrio published video games in the early 1990s under the name Character Soft.