Photo L-R: YOSHIKITTY and YOSHIKI.
Photo link, credit: Yoshiki (open for media use):
HERE.
LOS ANGELES (June 22, 2020)
The final results of the
2020 Sanrio Character Ranking
were announced earlier this month and
YOSHIKITTY
has defeated
Hello Kitty
to win
#1 in France, Germany,
and
Brazil
, as well as,
#2
in
China.
The
Sanrio Character Ranking
competition grows more intense every year, and the 2020 event allowed fans from all over the world to vote on a selection of
Sanrio's 80 most-popular characters
.
YOSHIKITTY’s
massive international support brought the beloved character to
#6 worldwide overall
, placing in the
Top 10
for the fifth straight year in a row. To view the full
Sanrio Character Ranking
voting results of the 80 characters, visit
:
https://ranking.sanrio.co.jp/en/result/world
.
In addition to online voting, other voting methods included purchases at
Sanrio
shops, which overwhelmed demand for the already-popular
YOSHIKITTY
items. Stores sold out immediately, and orders were backed up for months. Even with such a voting handicap,
YOSHIKITTY
still won a top position among other iconic characters such as
Hello Kitty, Cinnamoroll,
and
Pompompurin
.
YOSHIKITTY
--based on
YOSHIKI
, rock star, composer and the leader of
X JAPAN
and created by the original
Hello Kitty
designer
Yuko Yamaguchi
--was born in 2009 as the first
Hello Kitty
character who is modeled after a real, living person. With more than 500 items on sale,
YOSHIKITTY
is associated with many top brands.
This year,
YOSHIKITTY
also
won first place
among all
80 characters
in the pre-sale of the
"Sanrio Character Pedometer".
Because of the award, the decision was made to create the special edition
"Yoshikitty Digital Health Meter"
just for this character in addition to the
"Yoshikitty Pedometer"
, with sales starting June 9.
YOSHIKI
commented, "Thanks to everyone who voted for Yoshikitty. I'm so happy to see the support from fans not just in Japan but also from around the world."
YOSHIKI
, who composed the official theme song for
Hello Kitty
, teased fans with the idea that "Maybe I'll compose a theme song for Yoshikitty to say 'thank you' for all the support. Not only that, I would like to continue delivering wonderful music, so that I can give back to everyone as much as possible."
