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This is a list of characters from Sanrio, a Japanese company specialized in creating kawaii (cute) characters. Sanrio sells and licenses products branded with these characters and has created over 450 characters. Their most successful and best known character, Hello Kitty, was created in 1974. Most Sanrio characters are anthropomorphized animals while a few are humans or anthropomorphized objects.
Sanrio began creating characters to increase sales of its merchandise. Typical merchandise featuring the characters include clothing, accessories, toys and stationery. The characters subsequently appeared in media such as books, animation and video games. Beginning with Jewelpet in 2008, Sanrio started collaborating with Sega Toys in creating characters intended to become media franchises. Notable designers of Sanrio characters include Yuko Shimizu, original designer of Hello Kitty, Yuko Yamaguchi, lead designer for most of Hello Kitty's history and Miyuki Okumura, original designer of Cinnamoroll.
Sanrio hosts two theme parks in Japan featuring their characters, Sanrio Puroland in Tama, Tokyo, and Harmonyland in Hiji, Ōita, Kyūshū. Since 1986 Sanrio has held the annual Sanrio Character Ranking poll where fans can vote on their favorite characters. It began in the Strawberry Newspaper published by Sanrio in Japan, but now voting also takes place online.
Besides their own original characters listed here, Sanrio also owns the rights to the Mr. Men characters and Japanese licensing rights to the Peanuts characters. The characters listed here are shown with the year in which they first appeared.
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