Monkichi Snubbed Again for 40th Sanrio Anniversary
My introduction to Monkichi was the Hello Kitty Animation Theater DVD, which was a series of mini shorts that mostly consisted of Sanrio adaptations of Aesop’s Fables. Monkichi’s star appearance is in “The Mercury and the Workmen,” otherwise known as “The Golden Axe.” If you’re a Monkichi fan that hasn’t seen this short, I need you to watch this. I could not for the life of me figure out who’s doing the English dub for Monkichi, but his foolish counterpart monkey’s voice acting is so funny. In lieu of the recent 40th Sanrio Character Ranking Awards, I wanted to research more about him. Who is Monkichi...you may ask: Is crazy about puns Lives in the hills in the Japanese countryside Has an upbeat disposition and is easygoing Keeps his friends entertained with stories and jokes Dreams of being a poet Loves bananas and can eat 10 in one minute Monkichi was released during the year of the Monkey in 1992. He is a Capricorn. He works hard, he plays harder. In 1993, Monkichi was ranked #4 in the Sanrio Character Ranking Awards. In the following rankings, his popularity only steeply declines. In the 40th ranking of this year, he’s ranked no. 43. There are worse off Sanrio monkeys to be fair. Chi Chai Monchan definitely has it worse. There’s also Timmy and Tammy. Here’s the rankings dating back to 1993 for Monkichi from his wiki, although 1997-2009 is left vague.
1993: 4th place 1994: 7th place 1995: 10th place 1996: 9th place 1997-2009: not in top 10 2010: 14th place 2011: 25th place 2012: 22nd place 2013: 30th place 2014: not in top 20 (7th place in Group E) 2015: 37th place 2016: 31st place 2017: 31st place 2018: 38th place 2019: 37th place 2020: 33rd place 2021: 41st place 2022: 38th place 2023: 38th place 2024: 43rd place
Current CEO of Sanrio is Tomokuni Tsuji, the youngest CEO of Sanrio to-date. He was only 4 when Monkichi debuted, so there’s maybe a chance that he was slightly too young for Monkichi to be nostalgic or memorable for him. Most Monkichi merch is children’s school supplies and stationary. On eBay, you can frequently find things like Monkichi lock & key diaries or tins for children. He also has a diverse amount of variation in his plushies when it comes to his face. There are many disturbing Monkichi plushies to be found where he looks deflated and pruned or inversely over inflated and bug-eyed.
Monkichi’s creator is Michiyo Tanaka, who doesn’t frequently appear much via English & Japanese searches besides her being credited with Monkichi in a few Sanrio wikis. I found this photo of different characters and their creators.
I truly believe Michiyo Tanaka deserves all the book tours and royalties or whatever could come from making such an irreplaceable character.
Monkichi debuted right before the peak of the Mid-90s Banking Crisis in Japan, which is likely not that relevant to this monkey’s comparative lack of success. Part of me cannot help but imagine a totally grand conspiracy where the Sanrio stocks are low…the character industry is pushed to export strategic globally high performing cute mascots to continually rebrand post-war Japan…all the while Michiyo Tanaka and Monkichi were massively snubbed. In part of trying to find information that could be used to intellectualize Monkichi’s historical snubbery, I found a very charming diagram from this one research paper related to Sanrio’s strategic use of character collaborations.
Monkichi doesn’t need to win a character ranking. He certainly does not need to become the #1 face of bad Western Kawaii merch. There’s plenty of eBay hits for Monkichi. But we do deserve more archived knowledge about Monkichi. If Michiyo Tanaka is somehow reading this, I want to know more about you and Monkichi. If anyone has Strawberry Magazine files or physical copies that feature Monkichi, I would love to see them.