#rapiit

Back in July when a limited-period Funassyiland opened in Yokohama, a lot of people were hoping for a soft toy version of the Funassyi as The Girl In Red Shoes (see the Yokohama Funassyiland post for details on the Girl in Red Shoes legend), or as fans call her, Onnashiko - combining the word for female - onna - with the word for pear - nashi and adding a common female name ending -ko. Well now there is an Onnashiko doll - but it’s only available from the Loft website and the Ikebukuro Loft for some reason, not from Funassyiland. It comes with a matching red tote bag, plus other undisclosed Funassyi merchandise. It kind of seems to me like the manufacturer, Rapiit, wanted to get it out as a New Years lucky bag (fukubukuro) but somehow missed the deadline or something. But regardless of the timing, this cutie is probably going to be pretty popular. 

This Rakuten Golden Eagles Funassyi mascot doll sold out within minutes when it went on sale on the Eagles’ online shop, but it will be available again tonight (April 15th) at 21:00 Japan time. The Eagles shop doesn’t ship directly overseas, so if you’re not in Japan you will need to use a package forwarding service. The little mascot doll is 13cm tall, and costs 1300 yen plus tax.

Funassyi will be throwing out the first pitch before the Rakuten Eagles vs. Nippon Ham Fighters game on April 9th at Rakuten Kobo Stadium, and the Eagles’ merchandising team and Rapiit, one of the regular makers of Funassyi wares, have been busy working on Funassyi-Eagles products, which look terribly cute. They even include a Funassyi version of every member of the Eagles team (third photo). A portion of the proceeds from the sale of these items will go to Funassyi’s favorite charity, the Michinoku Future Fund. 

So far no announcements have been made as to where these Funassyi-collaboration items will be sold, besides inside the Eagles’ stadium itself, I do hope they’ll be available on their online store eventually. 

A few more photos of Funa Santa and friends in Funabashi on Christmas Day - according to Aicchy, they visited 4 facilities. Kappa no Kotaro and Aicchy look adorable in matching green outfits as Funa Santa’s elves (top photo). I love the way Funassyi always gets down to eye level when talking to small children (middle photo). The Reindeer, or rather the CEO of Rapiit Co., who also runs the gotouchi chara-friendly Live&Bar Hugo, tweeted that he was going to spend the rest of the day as a reindeer (bottom photo), and that the second drink of everyone who came to the bar on Christmas would be on him.

Here’s a video clip of one of Funa Santa’s stops, at Natsumidai Kindergarten in south Funabashi.