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Hello Kitty dungeon featured in latest Puzzle & Dragons collaboration

Rick Martin 2014.01.28

GungHo Online Entertainment has teamed up with Sanrio, the company behind Hello Kitty, to launch yet another cross-game collaboration. The promotion will bring Hello Kitty characters into GungHo’s hit mobile game, Puzzle and Dragons, while P&D themed decorations will be available for players of Sanrio’s Hello Kitty World. For P&D players it represents a chance to collect rare Hello Kitty themed monsters for your team. Anyone who has tried the collaboration dungeon will no doubt have been rewarded with a few of the crappier cards. But there are some quality cards to be found, especially if you try the Hello Kitty Rare Egg Machine (pictured above, center), a special themed ‘gacha’ machine 1. Some of the more rare and powerful monsters available are pictured below. Overall I think the collaboration will be a good one for Sanrio, promoting their game to the millions of P&D players in Japan and around the world. Conversely, I don’t think there will be much value for GungHo by promoting Puzzle & Dragons inside Hello Kitty World. The latter is a pretty unremarkable game unless you’re a major Kitty-phile, and it won’t bring GungHo any great amount of new users. But the Hello Kitty IP…

GungHo Online Entertainment has teamed up with Sanrio, the company behind Hello Kitty, to launch yet another cross-game collaboration. The promotion will bring Hello Kitty characters into GungHo’s hit mobile game, Puzzle and Dragons, while P&D themed decorations will be available for players of Sanrio’s Hello Kitty World.

For P&D players it represents a chance to collect rare Hello Kitty themed monsters for your team. Anyone who has tried the collaboration dungeon will no doubt have been rewarded with a few of the crappier cards. But there are some quality cards to be found, especially if you try the Hello Kitty Rare Egg Machine (pictured above, center), a special themed ‘gacha’ machine 1. Some of the more rare and powerful monsters available are pictured below.

Overall I think the collaboration will be a good one for Sanrio, promoting their game to the millions of P&D players in Japan and around the world.

Conversely, I don’t think there will be much value for GungHo by promoting Puzzle & Dragons inside Hello Kitty World. The latter is a pretty unremarkable game unless you’re a major Kitty-phile, and it won’t bring GungHo any great amount of new users. But the Hello Kitty IP is an asset to have in its game, and that’s the primary goal here, I expect.

You can check out more of the Hello Kitty monsters available in this collaboration over on the Puzzle & Dragons database.

I got a Cinnamoroll. ↩

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Japanese homescreen decoration app hits 12M downloads, partners with Sanrio

Junya Mori 2013.08.01

Based on our previously published Japanese article CocoPPa is a popular homescreen decoration app from Japan that also has some handy social functions. It is operated by United Co. Ltd., and yesterday that company announced that the app has broken though the 12 million downloads milestone. That’s an impressive feat considering that the app just launched about a year ago in July of 2012. What’s remarkable about CocoPPa is that about 83% of its downloads have been from overseas, making it a remarkable success story among Japanese companies that have often have difficulties looking abroad. It was just a little over a month ago that the app surpassed the 10 million downloads mark, and it’s release on Google Play back in late May, picking up the slack for slowing iOS downloads, as you can see in the chart above. CocoPPa also recently became available on the Amazon Android app store as well as the Opera Mobile Store just a few days ago. On a related note, it was announced earlier this month that CocoPPa would be seeking third-party content providers for partnerships and collaborations. And now Sanrio has decided to participate, bringing well-known IP like Hello Kitty, My Melody, and…

Based on our previously published Japanese article

CocoPPa is a popular homescreen decoration app from Japan that also has some handy social functions. It is operated by United Co. Ltd., and yesterday that company announced that the app has broken though the 12 million downloads milestone. That’s an impressive feat considering that the app just launched about a year ago in July of 2012.

What’s remarkable about CocoPPa is that about 83% of its downloads have been from overseas, making it a remarkable success story among Japanese companies that have often have difficulties looking abroad.

It was just a little over a month ago that the app surpassed the 10 million downloads mark, and it’s release on Google Play back in late May, picking up the slack for slowing iOS downloads, as you can see in the chart above. CocoPPa also recently became available on the Amazon Android app store as well as the Opera Mobile Store just a few days ago.

On a related note, it was announced earlier this month that CocoPPa would be seeking third-party content providers for partnerships and collaborations. And now Sanrio has decided to participate, bringing well-known IP like Hello Kitty, My Melody, and Little Twin Stars to feature in the app.

CocoPPa has previously partnered with Tokyo Otaku Mode on anime-themed homescreen decorations, and it also launched a Kanahei collaboration to mark its first anniversary back on July 19th.

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Hello Kitty for your Smartphone: 5 Cute Apps to Try

SCORE 3,011

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.06.24

Hello Kitty Run! Run! Run! Perhaps the most popular of Japan’s many cute characters is Hello Kitty from Sanrio. This tiny cat absolutely everywhere, even on our mobile phones. Over on App Annie, searching ‘Hello Kitty’ brings up an astonishing 328 results. Here are just five of the apps we think you should consider downloading first. 1. Hello Kitty Mail ¶ One of the reasons that so many Japanese girls hesitated to switch to smartphones from feature phones was that it would be more difficult to send texts with cute emojis. Girls all have their favorite emoticons, and switching means that they would have to abandon them. But this Hello Kitty Mail app lets users send emails with cute Hello Kitty emojis, as well as Little Twin Sisters and My Melody. Additional emoji can be purchased within the app. If you’d like to download it, you can get it over on the app store for 170 yen (about $1.99). 2. Hello Kitty World ¶ Japanese web portal company Nifty released its iOS app in cooperation with Sanrio Wave back in April of 2012. And within just a year, the app has expanded to over 52 countries, with more than one…

Hello Kitty Run! Run! Run!

Perhaps the most popular of Japan’s many cute characters is Hello Kitty from Sanrio. This tiny cat absolutely everywhere, even on our mobile phones. Over on App Annie, searching ‘Hello Kitty’ brings up an astonishing 328 results. Here are just five of the apps we think you should consider downloading first.

1. Hello Kitty Mail ¶

One of the reasons that so many Japanese girls hesitated to switch to smartphones from feature phones was that it would be more difficult to send texts with cute emojis. Girls all have their favorite emoticons, and switching means that they would have to abandon them. But this Hello Kitty Mail app lets users send emails with cute Hello Kitty emojis, as well as Little Twin Sisters and My Melody. Additional emoji can be purchased within the app. If you’d like to download it, you can get it over on the app store for 170 yen (about $1.99).

2. Hello Kitty World ¶

Japanese web portal company Nifty released its iOS app in cooperation with Sanrio Wave back in April of 2012. And within just a year, the app has expanded to over 52 countries, with more than one million total downloads as of February 2013. With this app, users can create their own playland using different Sanrio characters. The social feature allows players to compete with each other through Twitter and Facebook too. The app has an English website which you can check out here.

3. Hello Kitty Run! Run! Run! ¶

Hello Kitty Run! Run! Run! is an app developed by the giant gaming company NamcoBandai, released back in May for both iOS and Android. In the game, an 8-bit Hello Kitty goes on adventures around the world turning herself into soldiers and witches. There are over 200 costumes for Hello Kitty to gear up in and over 50 stages to beat. The game is very simple and can be controlled by two buttons on the sides of the screen, making it suitable even for kids.

Check out Hello Kitty Run! Run! Run! in action below.

4. Hello Kitty Stamp Calendar ¶

This is a simple calendar app developed by Sanrio Wave featuring original Hello Kitty stamps. The app comes with an original Hello Kitty calendar theme that changes every week. By turning on the app once a day you can see Omikuji, a sort of a fortune-telling or horoscope. The calendar is good for three months, so in order to continue using the app it will be necessary to purchase an additional three months for 115 yen.

Hello Kitty Stamp Calendar is available on iOS for 350 yen (or $3.99).

5. Hello Kitty Face ¶

This one is for true Hello Kitty fans. ‘Hello Kitty Face’ is designed to work with a special iPhone case created by Gourmandise.

The outer case works as Hello Kitty’s body and the app displays her face on your mobile sceen. The iPhone case is available on Amazon Japan for 2,990 yen (or about $31) ¹.

To see the official Hello Kitty apps by Sanrio, you can check out Sanrio’s website.

On a related note, this may be the cutest Hello Kitty iPhone case ever.↩

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Ancient Japanese art finds an unlikely purpose in new Hello Kitty iPhone cover

Rick Martin 2013.04.05

The traditional Japanese style of lacquer art known as Maki-e goes back thousands of years, involving the use of metal powders or seashell material to create spectacular designs under a fine lacquer finish. And one company has brought this ancient tradition into the modern day by using it for the creation of intricate iPhone covers. This special smartphone cover, which goes on sale tomorrow, is the amazing Hello Kitty iPhone cover pictured above. It was created by Echizen Lacquerware Ltd, with planning from Principle Co Ltd, and of course licensed from the folks at Sanrio. As you can see in the video below, it’s a handcrafted product that requires great care, and the resulting cover doesn’t come cheap. The Hello Kitty case will go on sale tomorrow for the price of 18,000 yen, or about $200. It can be purchased at Kusuyama stores in Japan and around the world, and it can also be bought online. This is not the first time that we’ve seen an old-school Japanese art encasing Apple’s iPhone. Last month we looked at elegant ‘Musubi’ paper cases from Kyoto-based manufacturer Suzuki Shufudo.

The traditional Japanese style of lacquer art known as Maki-e goes back thousands of years, involving the use of metal powders or seashell material to create spectacular designs under a fine lacquer finish. And one company has brought this ancient tradition into the modern day by using it for the creation of intricate iPhone covers.

This special smartphone cover, which goes on sale tomorrow, is the amazing Hello Kitty iPhone cover pictured above. It was created by Echizen Lacquerware Ltd, with planning from Principle Co Ltd, and of course licensed from the folks at Sanrio.

As you can see in the video below, it’s a handcrafted product that requires great care, and the resulting cover doesn’t come cheap. The Hello Kitty case will go on sale tomorrow for the price of 18,000 yen, or about $200. It can be purchased at Kusuyama stores in Japan and around the world, and it can also be bought online.

This is not the first time that we’ve seen an old-school Japanese art encasing Apple’s iPhone. Last month we looked at elegant ‘Musubi’ paper cases from Kyoto-based manufacturer Suzuki Shufudo.

hello kitty

Hello Kitty dungeon featured in latest Puzzle & Dragons collaboration

Japanese homescreen decoration app hits 12M downloads, partners with Sanrio