Shopping Guide
Recently, whenever you go to a character shop in Japan, there will surely be a weird, brown creature in there. It doesn’t even need to specifically be a character shop; a convenience store nearby, a bookshop, or supermarket will do too. Those weird, brown fellas seem to be everywhere in Japan.
What are those weird brown things, you ask? They’re called nameko, a kind of mushroom and a popular ingredient in Japanese cuisine. For instance, it is often eaten in miso soup. But why has nameko become a mascot? What’s the reason?
It all began with Touch Detective, a logic-adventure game for the Nintendo DS. The support character for the protagonist is Nameko, an enigmatic being always with an absent-minded expression, and the only thing he can say is, “Nnf, nnf.” At this point, Nameko was no more than a game character. But then, Touch Detective became a smash hit, and a sequel was underway. Then something happened. The Touch Detective series started an advertising project in the form of the free iPhone application, Funghi Gardening Kit (Nameko Saibai Kit).
This application is the third in the Touch Detective Free Application Trilogy. By tapping and flicking freely, you cultivate “Nameko” just like you would with real mushrooms, and the objective is to harvest them. If you succeed in cultivating, a lot of different Nameko will appear. A special feature of the game is that you can create rare, and also weird Nameko, which is a lot of fun. Although, all of them have that absent-minded expression on their face and just say, “Nnf, nnf”.
This app became a great hit. In three months, the number of downloads reached 1.9 million, and it is getting high reviews from women in their teens and 20s. It has a high reputation not only in Japan, but every Asian country. For that reason, a second part of Funghi Gardening Kit was made, which also became a big hit. The whole series records more than 13 million downloads in total.
Taking advantage of this momentum, Nameko began its invasion in Japan. There are goods of every possible kind––iPhone cases, small toys sold with food, figures, keyholders, and plush toys––and these are most popular among teenage girls. Very popular in fact. Nameko planted a mushroom bed on a tree, and it was infinitely multiplying with a speed of earning 100 million yen per second.
It went as far that even a comical work titled Nameko Bungaku Zenshuu: Nameko de Wakaru Meisaku Bungaku (Nameko Complete Literary Collection: Famous Literature Told by Nameko), in which Nameko plays literary works of all times and places, was released. Nameko, by portraying the agony and tragicomedies of humans, infiltrated literature, humankind’s intellectual property. They seem to be living their prime. By the way, the time to harvest nameko is in the fall.
Honestly, it’s a mystery why Nameko is getting accepted so much. As the reason behind why most of the new things that get extremely popular is unknown, the immense multiplication of Nameko might only be described with a “well, that made a hit too.” It’s true that Nameko, with their absent-minded expressions, saying, “Nnf, nnf,” with a faint smile on their face, have a weird charm that you can’t take your eyes off. Sometimes, if you gaze at Nameko, when he laughs like that, you end up smiling for no reason. And Nameko keeps on laughing, “Nnf, nnf, nnf.”
Nameko, the Nameko... Maybe they planted their spores into unaware people. Nowadays, where everything keeps on gaining social speed, people are swung by that speed and exhausted, and these little guys just permeate into their gaping wide hearts. Is that comfort fallen down from the sky? Or is it a demon created by humans? There is no way for us to know. By the time Funghi Gardening Kit, one of the so-called scriptures appeared, we had no choice but to cultivate Nameko. And so, even today, we can’t do anything except loving our Nameko, with that goofy smile on their face as always.
This is a Tokyo Otaku Mode original article.
