Hello Kitty is everywhere. If you visit a supermarket, you are likely to find at least one product related to the Sanrio character: plates and cups, stationery products, children’s clothing, accessories, toys, and candy. There is also a whole underworld of unofficial items, such as piñatas and piggy banks. Along with Super Mario and SpongeBob SquarePants, Hello Kitty occupies an important place among the most recognizable characters around the world. And although today we recognize her as an adorable kitty with a bow that represents all things kawaii, an urban legend dating back more than 20 years says that she has a “demonic” origin.
In the 1980s, virtually every pop culture product that achieved international success was associated with the “devil.” The Smurfs, for example, were said to be satanic creatures whose official merchandise came to life at night; Dungeons & Dragons was said to incite young people to perform satanic rituals (as we saw with Eddie Munson in Stranger Things and the real-life character on which his character was based). And according to a theory, the name Hello Kitty, the innocent Japanese kitten, meant “Hello, Demon” and was based on the sad story of a little girl with cancer.
The true origin of Hello Kitty
Hello Kitty, also known as “Kitty White,” was created by Yuko Shimizu and designed by Yuko Yamaguchi in 1974, based on the Japanese fascination of the time with all things European. Kitty first appeared on a small transparent Sanrio coin purse in 1975 and, the following year, the character arrived in the United States. Over the years, it became one of the most successful franchises of all time.
Yuko Shimizu took the name “Hello Kitty” from Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass: at the beginning of the novel, Alice plays with a small cat she calls “Kitty.” The “Hello” comes from Sanrio’s philosophy as a company: communication between all people, which is reflected in prefixing “Hello Kitty” as a greeting. The original name, in fact, had been “Hi, Kitty,” but they finally decided on the one we know now.
Why is Hello Kitty mouthless?
While it’s obvious that “Hello Kitty” translates to “Hello, Kitty,” one urban legend says the name actually means “Hello, Demon.” And that claim is based on the story of a woman who allegedly created the character to please Satan. According to the story, the woman had a 14-year-old daughter who was diagnosed with mouth cancer and she, in desperation, resorted to all kinds of rituals to cure her. The demon would have promised to cure her daughter if, in exchange, she would create a character who could go around the world and, in this way, spread his satanic doctrine to all humanity (… okay).
The character has no mouth, supposedly, because it is a reference to the illness suffered by the daughter of its creator. And it is called “Hello Kitty” because “Kitty” means something like “demon” in Chinese (which is false and a simple Google search solves the mystery).
In fact, Sanrio spokespersons have said that Hello Kitty does not have a mouth because the intention of her design is for people to “project” their own feelings onto the character, in addition to the fact that they want her to speak “from the heart,” since she represents unity and does not have a specific language. She speaks to the world from the universal language of tenderness. Yuko Yamaguchi continues to work on Hello Kitty and takes new trends in entertainment and fashion to create new designs for the character.
Story originally published in Spanish in Cultura Colectiva
