 Gudetama is a cute little egg character conceptualized in 2013 by a company called Sanrio. You know, the guys that made Hello Kitty, my melody and uh, the rest of them. While the Sanrio characters are all super cutesy, Gudetama is...different. Don't get me wrong, it's super cute as well, but just not in the same way. It's like if you compare a Golden Retriever puppy with a little Chihuahua. Completely different vibes. Gudetama is known primarily for a miserable personality and lazy appearance, and popular for having an indifferent attitude towards life's many responsibilities. The mother hen, Sanrio. Sanrio is a Japanese company known for creating and licensing a wide range of cute and adorable characters. You know what you need? Some good luck! Wow, thanks! The company was founded in 1960 by Shintaro Suji in Tokyo, Japan. The characters are famous globally and appeal to people of all ages. So they're literally just characters not from a show or from a product, or from their own brand. Just characters under the Sanrio umbrella. Normally, iconic characters that get merchandise to hell come from some form of larger work. I'm pickle rich! Coming out of the shelf. We can all tell it's clearly an egg, but what exactly is a Gudetama? Gudegud in Japan is on a matapio for lazy and sluggishness. And Tama is Japanese for egg from Tamago, and then altogether it literally translates to lazy egg. Sanrio are kinda shady in that they don't like to publicly share who actually designed the character, but rather just say it's a character by Sanrio. However, a quick google search will show that Gudetama was created by a 26-year-old designer in a company called Emi or Emi Nagashima, simply inspired by an egg she saw whilst cooking dinner after a long day of work. This was part of a company-wide design competition to create a character based on food and the egg lost to a piece of salmon called Kirimi- Tudu, Tudu. Needless to say, the salmon didn't take off and Sanrio was super lucky that they also released some Gudetama stuff at the same time because that popped off. Its design is so simple yet portrays a no-can-do attitude so expressively and relatably. We are the egg. It's often seen laying around looking half asleep and just being generally disinterested in life. Surprisingly, sometimes it dips into some much darker commentary on life's everyday struggles. In fact, Gudetama's creation can be seen as a response to the stress and pressures of modern-day life overall. Particularly in Japanese society where work-related stress is a serious and sometimes life-threatening issue. Hello Kitty Couldn't Ever. The Eggs Crack One of the stranger details you may notice about the character design are these little booty cheeks. Why are these here? It feels like when the Crazy Frog was such a popular thing and we all had to look at his little I will say though, and I mean this in the least creepy way possible, I think they are a good addition to its design. Yeah, I probably should have kept that one to myself. But hear me out. The inclusion of a butt adds an element of humour into the design, which I believe helps to counteract some of the serious and miserable things being expressed. For example, Gudetama says and we can feel sad and have a bad time or… Wait, what gender is Gudetama? A lot of non-human characters from children's media have their gender left ambiguous intentionally. Presumably so that as many kids as possible can relate to the character they're viewing. However, the reason behind Gudetama's unknown gender actually makes perfect sense. Gudetama has no gender at all because it's literally an unfertilized egg and therefore can't have one. As far as pronouns go though, Gudetama is typically referred to as it. However, it should be noted that for some reason the Hello Kitty YouTube channel refers to it as him. Don't listen to her, go go! He him, he him, he him. Someone's getting fired? An egg hard to beat. Other than merch, which I'll get into shortly, Gudetama has made quite a splash worldwide through a bunch of different mediums. A few noteworthy examples include the Gudetama animated shorts. Yeah, I'm not too sure either, but listen to that voice. It's crazy. There's even a puzzle mobile game called Gudetama TAC. This little egg has made guest appearances in comics and web comics and in typical Japanese fashion there's Gudetama cafes where you can drink or eat all things Gudetama. It's a popular choice for conventions and a top tier Netflix show to top it off. I even found a Spotify account. But we'll ignore that one. Gudetama merch! You will not believe how many products there are out there with this little egg slapped onto them. And I am not ashamed to say I own quite a lot myself, but my collection barely scratches the surface. I just bought this off Facebook marketplace. Literally the same day I'm recording this Gudetama video and I just picked up a little cool bag for five bucks. What a bargain. I went to the door and then the old man answers and I was like, oh you're selling the Gudetama bag? He's like, do I look like I'm selling? Um, it was his daughters. But anyway, super cute bag. Some of my items include bags, plushies, more plushies, a bunch of stationery, some little food containers, stickers. Oh and now a cooler bag. As you would expect, there's a billion plushies, various pieces of clothing, accessories, stationary figures and key chains. But no, there's so much more. For some reason there's home decor, kitchenware, electronics, jewelry, beauty products, food, books, footwear, board games and party supplies. This level of merchandise makes Gudetama a super visible brand and allows Sanrio to collab with other brands to create even further reaching appeal. Just some of them I've noticed here in Australia recently are in Taipo, Black Milk and even Big W. Out of all places, Big W? Also, have a look at this. It's a Gudetama Hot Wheel. Gudetama is unsurprisingly Sanrio's third most profitable character just under Hello Kitty, of course, and my melody. Gudetama's message. Gudetama works as a character despite having a negative attitude because it's relatable. It's all about embracing imperfections and using humour to get through the tougher times. It represents the idea that sometimes it's so okay to feel lazy, unmotivated or indifferent and that these feelings are universal and part of what it means to be alive. We're not machines programmed to work all day and recharge overnight just to do it all over on repeat. We have emotions, interests and relationships with one another. Sometimes juggling all these things can really wear us down and the best possible thing for us to do in those moments is to simply be.