Uit “Tokyo on One Cliché a Day (2003)“:
I do very much enjoy the high value placed on cuteness here. My favorite pop culture character (please, Hello Kitty is over) is Sirotan. Sirotan is a plush stuffed seal, which is cute in itself, but the killer app is that Sirotan dresses up as other animals. After you buy Sirotan, you can buy all his different costumes. He dresses up as sharks, turtles, lobsters, and sundry other aquatic creatures. I still can’t figure out why Sirotan disguises himself like this. Maybe he’s playing with our conceptions of the seal paradigm. Maybe it’s just for yuks. Either way, damned cute, and that’s the important thing. Wackiness level: yellow, or “elevated.”