King Charles wishes Hello Kitty a happy 50th birthday

King Charles named Sanrio’s most iconic character Hello Kitty during a speech at a state banquet this week celebrating Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako’s visit to Buckingham Palace. The king is keen to strengthen diplomatic ties between Japan and the UK, and pointed to Japanese pop culture icons that connect the two countries, including Hello Kitty and recent performances of a stage adaptation of Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away in the London Colosseum.

“Maybe I can name one person who will be fifty this year,” the king said in the palace ballroom at the start of the banquet. “Growing up in a suburb of London with her twin sister, a self-made entrepreneur with a billion dollar fortune and also a UNICEF ambassador for children. So I can only wish a very happy birthday to… Hello Kitty!”

As King Charles noted, Hello Kitty turns 50 this year. Hello Kitty was first created by Yuko Shimizu for the Sanrio company in 1974 and first appeared in the form of a small vinyl coin purse. Although she is depicted as an anthropomorphic white Japanese bobtail cat with a yellow nose and no mouth, Kitty is not a cat — she is actually a British girl.

Idealized British childhood

According to Sanrio, her full name is Kitty White and she was born in London. “She is never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature,” said anthropologist Christine R. Yano of the University of Hawaii in an interview with the LA Times. She even has her own cat, named Charmmy Kitty, who was introduced in 2004. Hello Kitty’s simple design provides a blank canvas for little girls and women to project their own feelings onto her. But she was specifically chosen to be British because British culture was trending in Japan in the 1970s. “(The Japanese) loved the idea of ​​Britain. It represented the typical idealized childhood, almost like a white picket fence,” Yano explains.

The first Sanrio gift shop opened in the United States in 1976. But broader knowledge about her family and background is not as widespread outside Japan. Kitty has an identical twin sister, Mimmy. The only distinguishing point between the sisters is that instead of having a red bow on the left side of her head like Kitty, Mimmy wears a yellow bow on the right side of her head. The girls live with their father, George, and mother, Mary. They are also often visited by Grandpa Anthony and Grandma Margaret. Hello Kitty also has a boyfriend, Dear Daniel.

Billion Dollar Brand

The King’s speech also highlighted several of Kitty’s achievements, such as her role as a billion-dollar brand and UNICEF children’s ambassador. The success of Hello Kitty allowed Sanrio to grow exponentially into the billion-dollar company it is today. Hello Kitty alone accounts for about $7 billion of Sanrio’s sales in merchandising and licensing retail deals. Throughout the 1990s, she was Japan’s undefeated highest-grossing character, and Kitty remains in the top five highest-grossing media franchises of all time. Hello Kitty’s own theme park, Sanrio Puroland, opened in 1990 in Tama, Tokyo.

UNICEF Ambassador

In 1983, the United Nations Children’s Fund appointed her children’s ambassador to the United States. In 1994, she was reappointed as Japan’s Children’s Ambassador. And in 2004 she became UNICEF “Special Friend of Children,” a title uniquely given to her after Sanrio raised more than $150,000 for girls’ education programs.

The Instagram account @hellokittyeu thanked King Charles for his mention, writing: “We would like to sincerely thank His Majesty King Charles III for his birthday congratulations to Hello Kitty on her 50th wedding anniversary, during the visit of Their Majesties Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako.”

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