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The story
A vote to choose a new mascot to replace the penguin familiar from Suica ticket gates and ads has been making waves online. There were three candidate designs — A, B, and C — and posters on 5ch (a major Japanese forum) increasingly suspected the poll was rigged to push voters toward Option A, while the other two drew comments like “not that great” and “just keep the penguin.” The current penguin is an illustrator’s original character that had already appeared in picture books, and rumor has it the high licensing fees are the real reason for the switch. Some posters even posted their own AI-generated mascot designs as alternatives, and the thread also lit up with comparisons to other companies’ mascots.
What people said
Just keep the penguin
Apparently they're dropping it because the annual licensing fee is pretty steep
The penguin is the illustrator's own original character and appeared in picture books first
So it costs money to use
This one was pretty clearly just doodled by some guy in-house
Is this company stupid or something?
Looks like it's about to shout "Bakeratta!" (the catchphrase of a certain meme monster)
But the mole itself might not actually want to go outside
This one's better
Though it kind of looks like a bush warbler
This is really good
JR should just go with this one
This is exactly the kind of thing AI should be used well for 🥺
Apparently it was pretty unpopular overseas though
Same as with Tokyo Metropolitan University — they love running a survey just for show and then ignoring the results
ChatGPT makes a way better one, honestly
A made-up creature
That only flew because it's Kansai
If they tried this in Kanto they'd get torn apart
Runner-up: Nishitetsu's ferret, kinda hot ngl
Well, the penguin was never exclusive to Suica in the first place
They just brought in a character that already had established fame
It's like casting Shohei Ohtani in a commercial
Never really thought about it before, but the penguin's just on another level
Such a great design
Apparently it's not based on any specific animal
The mole in the little pouch is supposedly the main character
JR ran a public naming poll for that station.
Results:
1st: "Takanawa" — 8,398 votes
2nd: "Shibaura" — 4,265 votes
3rd: "Shibahama" — 3,497 votes
4th (tie): "Shin-Shinagawa" and "Sengakuji"
And after "weighing various circumstances," they ended up with… "Takanawa Gateway."
Assuming the winner will actually be picked from these three options is naive.
LOL 🤣 what even is "Gateway" supposed to mean
The penguin's high salary is the sticking point, apparently…
Background and key points of this discussion
The current Suica penguin is an original character created by illustrator Chiharu Sakazaki, who had already featured it in picture books before it became the Suica mascot — a backstory that fueled the recurring theory in the thread that JR is dropping it over licensing costs. JR East has also been in the news over cost-cutting moves like reviewing unprofitable rail lines, which lends the cost-reduction theory some plausibility, though it’s worth noting JR has not officially confirmed this as the reason. Opinions in the thread split over whether Option A, treated as the presumed “favorite” among the three candidates, was actually the best of the bunch — Options B and C each had their own share of supporters. Posters also invoked the saga of the public naming poll for Takanawa Gateway Station (a real case where the top vote-getter wasn’t the name ultimately chosen) as a reference point, voicing skepticism that this vote too might just be for show with the results ignored — a context worth keeping in mind when weighing how much this poll will actually matter.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “[Sad News] JR Holds a Vote to Pick Suica’s New Mascot, But Slips In Two Rejects Alongside the Favorite”.
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