Tissue-san arrived!

Japanese consumer culture, which is utterly perverse, is always good for a laugh. I don't know how or why, but something about the modern Japanese mentality insists on fetishizing the strangest things. Consider Tissue-san. (NB: if it asks you to install the Japanese language pack, just hit cancel. You can still enjoy the resulting page.) Evidently someone has made a line of products based on several comix characters that are.... boxes, packs, or other containers of tissue paper. The products include a tissue paper box hanger, a little post-its holder that looks like a box of tissues, and the inevitable notebooks and pens.

If you click home, you will see similar product lines based on comix characters that are: cheese; bunny angels; beer-drinking ducks; chestnuts; jelly; and "mixed cats."

I wish I were better versed in whatever discipline or knowledge -- anthropology, psychology, or whatever -- that would allow me to understand the origins of this insanely strong Japanese drive for the cute. I guess it's just infantilism, commercialized ad infinitum. In any case, it makes American popular culture look positively adult in comparison.