Kumamon Birthday Picks

Kumamon is one of my favourite Japanese mascots, who does his best to spread the word about all the special things in Kumamoto Prefecture. I was delighted to get an email from his team letting me know it’s his birthday on March 12th so here’s some fun shopping picks, freebies and more.

if you’re anywhere near Kumamoto City, you can join the birthday celebrations as there’s a Kumamon Birthday Festival happening over this weekend! Hopefully they will share some of it on the Kumamon Youtube channel later for the rest of us.

Kumamoto is famous for is watermelons so of course you can get an interactive coin bank with Kumamon in a watermelon box. Place a coin on the dish and he’ll pop out to grab it. It’s available from a few shops including Plaza Japan, Japan Figure and Japan Trend Shop, who all ship internationally from Japan.

The same shop links also have a few different Kumamon figures to display (this one has poseable arms), including Kumamon-themed cars, submarine and train.

There’s more fruit in this colourful collection with Intermode at Amazon Japan. Choose from lots of different fruit designs as hand towels and insulated lunch bags that are perfect for a picnic.

Stationery lovers can pick up a set of 3 cute mini memo pads from Tofu Cute (UK) for snail mail or journaling. They’re a real bargain too!

Or how about this adorable sticker sheet from oshoppu (UK)? I don’t think I could bear to use these.

If you don’t have a 2023 calendar yet, there are still some available at CDJapan (JP), along with a surprisingly large selection of Kumamon CDs, DVDs and books.

There’s lots of freebies on the Kumamon website including wallpapers, printable paper crafts and even mouse pointers.

Are you a Kumamon fan? I really hope to meet him some day.