SOUTH KOREA: Mashmaro - an animated internet rabbit is a cult craze

Record ID: 524260

  • Title: SOUTH KOREA: Mashmaro - an animated internet rabbit is a cult craze
  • Date: 1st August 2001
  • Summary: (L!1)SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (RECENT) (REUTERS) WIDE OF CROWD OF YOUNG KOREANS AT COEX MALL IN SEOUL QUEUING FOR THE CINEMA VARIOUS OF PEOPLE CARRYING RABBIT-SHAPED DOLLS, MASHIMARO IN THEIR BACKPACKS (3 SHOTS) SCU CHO SUN-HEE USING MOBILE PHONE STRUNG WITH MASHIMARO SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Korean) 20-YEAR-OLD CHO SUN-HEE SAYING: "I saw it on Internet, and my boyfriend bought one for
  • Embargoed: 16th August 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NATURAL WITH JAPANESE SPEECH
  • Country: South Korea
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVAM7GCTWCPCU1S5MQJV7OYMEOD
  • Story Text: "Mashimaro", an unconventional animated Internet rabbit, has taken South Korea by storm.
    It's not hard to see what South Korea's youth is hung on this season. Just take a walk in downtown Seoul or the city's shopping malls and you'll see it everywhere - and on everyone.
    This time it's a rabbit, - white, round, sleepy and definitely cute.
    People carry it on their bags, their mobile phones, or anything they can lay their hands on and walk out of the house with.
    Its name is "Mashimaro". That means "marsh-mallow," when you pronounce it as a baby might.
    Marshmallows are very popular with Korea's children who eat them in much loved chocolate pies.
    Mashimaro first appeared on the Internet. It is the main character in a series of short online cartoon called "Mashimaro Forest Tale."
    "I saw it on the Internet, and my boyfriend bought one for me," said 20-year-old Cho Sun-hee.
    "The online cartoons on the computer (Internet) are quite interesting, and the character is cute. Most Korean characters look dull, but Mashimaro is fresh and cute," said 21-year-old Park Jae-young.
    "Picnic" is the most popular of the Mashimaro six-parter.
    It's about little Mashimaro, our cult-rabbit, arriving uninvited at big bear's picnic. Big bear, angry about the intrusion, threatens rabbit with an axe. But, instead of running away, Mashimaro smashes two bottles on its own head.
    Then, the frightened bear peels a fruit and offers it as an apology.
    So, this rabbit is really no ordinary doll on the shelf.
    Its strange habits have earned it the nickname "Yeopgi (bizarre) Tokki (rabbit)."
    "Mashimaro" the cartoon is about letting go within a rigid society, its creator, Choi Seung-ho, says.
    "Netizens put the nickname 'Yeopgi Tokki' to Mashimaro, saying that its way of behaviour is abrupt and unexpected -- that's 'yeopgi' according to their definition," said Choi who is also president of CLKO Entertainment.
    Another bizarre episode, "Moon," is a parody of a Korean fable.
    In that story, rabbits living on the moon prepare traditional Korean cakes, for a full moon day, by pounding rice in a mortar. Meanwhile, back on earth, Mashimaro uses a modern toilet-stool and toilet-plunger to show how the pounding is done to a small group of monkeys.
    Mashimaro fans love their idol so much that some of them have even set up fan clubs on the Internet.
    "Now me and eight of my colleagues are managing (our homepage). I handle only important things. I could not handle fans properly alone, because there are too many (Mashimaro) fans," said a fan club organiser Yoo Jae-hyon. Her homepage has about 40,000 members.
    Mashimaro was so popular, so quickly, that counterfeits of people's favourite series soon hit the market.
    In fact so quickly, that CLKO Entertainment hadn't had the time to produce their own.
    In this case, it was from the double-faced Mashimaro from the "Action (Wanted)" episode.
    In that episode, Mashimaro is wanted by the police (a pig) and disguises himself as a dog. He then uses the toilet-plunger to push the policeman off a cliff.
    So far, about two million people have visited CLKO Entertainment's homepage to view the animation cartoons since they started in August.
    And about two million pieces of Mashimaro dolls have been sold since February.
    Mashimaro dolls vary from 3,000 won (2.30 US dollars) to 28,000 won (21.45 US dollars), depending on their size.
    Mashimaro's popularity has shaken the Korean 'character' market, which, until now, was dominated by imported characters, such as the Japanese 'Hello Kitty'.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register