This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

One of the cool parts about moving to a new city or a new state or a new country

is that you notice all these fascinating things about a place that are just

normal for people who have been there a long time. When Chris Carlier moved from

England to Japan in 2002 there was one thing that really stood out to him.

I think a lot of Japanese people go about their day and they don't really pay any attention

to the mascots that are everywhere. The mascots. Real-world life-size

character costumes with sweaty actors inside. Most people ignore them, but I always

found them really fascinating.

Here in the US, mascots are used to pump up crowds

at sporting events or traumatized generations

of children at Chuck E. Cheese.

But in Japan, it's different. There are mascots for towns, aquariums, prisons.

Sometimes I just go to the dentist and the dentist has their own mascot.

There are mascots that tell people not to litter, or remind them to stay quiet on the train.

Everything has a mascot and anything can be a mascot.

There's an anthropomorphized bear mascot.

There's an anthropomorphized melon mascot.

There's an anthropomorphized bear whose head is made out of a melon.

His name is Melanchuma, and he's the mascot of a region known for both its bears and its melons.

And so as Carlier adjusted to his new life in Tokyo,

he started snapping photos of all these mascots he was coming across.

...