List of Sanrio characters

This is a list of characters from Sanrio, a Japanese company specialized in creating cute characters. Beginning in 1963, Sanrio sells and licenses products branded with these characters and has created over 400 characters, with the most successful and best known being Hello Kitty.

The characters listed here are shown with the year in which they first appeared.

Hello Kitty (ハローキティ^?, Harō Kiti) is the best-known of Sanrio's fictional characters, created in 1974. Hello Kitty is drawn simply with a trademark red bow. Registered in 1975, Hello Kitty is now a globally known trademark. Hello Kitty has been marketed in the United States from the beginning and has held the position of U.S. children's ambassador for UNICEF since 1983. The brand rose to greater prominence during the late 1990s when several celebrities such as Mariah Carey adopted Hello Kitty as a fashion statement. New products featuring the character can be found in virtually any American department store and Hello Kitty was once featured in an advertising campaign of the retail chain Target. The character got its first Massively Multiplayer Online Game produced by Sanrio Digital and Typhoon Games entitled Hello Kitty Online which was released worldwide, including the United States, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.

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