3139. Sanrio Orange Cat

Sanrio 1991 2008 Creata Promotion HK Ltd 2005 McDonalds Happy Meal

Sanrio Co., Ltd. (株式会社サンリオ Kabushiki-kaisha Sanrio?) is a Japanese company that designs, licenses and produces products focusing on the kawaii (cute) segment of Japanese popular culture. Their products include stationery, school supplies, gifts and accessories that are sold worldwide and at specialty brand retail stores in Japan. Sanrio's best known character is Hello Kitty, a white cat with red bow and no visible mouth, one of the most successful marketing brands in the world.
Besides selling character goods, Sanrio takes part in movie production and publishing. They own the rights to the Peanuts characters in Japan. Their animatronics branch, called Kokoro Company, Ltd. ("Kokoro" being Japanese for "heart"), is best known for the Actroid android. They participate in the fast food industry, running a franchise of KFC in Saitama.

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, part of the company's former name, has an alternative on'yomi reading of sanri. The remaining o was added from the ou 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 mouthless feline 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 and Jewelpet. Sanrio constantly adds new characters to its lineup (up to three a year), so some of the older characters go into retirement. 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