After 10 seasons of not having a mascot, the front office finally realized that having a cute animal that can be turned into a plush toy and sold to children (or girlfriends with pussywhipped easily-swayed significant others) might be conducive towards making a shit-ton of merchandise cash conducting a profitable enterprise and fielding a competitive squad. In Spring 2008, surveys were handed out at Ajinomoto Stadium during FC Tokyo home games, inviting fans to express their views on what they would like to see in a mascot. Opinions ranged from a characture of team legend Amaral, to a revival of the old bird mascot from the Tokyo Gas FC era, to no mascot at all.
The fans waited. In contrast to the last home game of 2007 when the only bright spot of the day was the unveiling of the 10th anniversary 2008 uniforms, the last home game of 2008 was replete with hope of an ACL 2009 bid and both new uniforms and mascots were the last thing on the fan’s minds. Indeed, many believed that enough negative response had been generated that the team had abandoned the mascot search.
In early December 2008, the following two images reached the FCT fan community after first appearing on famed Japanese BBS 2channel:
The image on the left features some kind of horrendous thing, sporting blue-and-red tail, glasses, and mohawk. It is not wearing any recognizable clothing and could justifiably be described as creepy.
The image on the right appears to be a cleaned-up, vectorized version of the image on the left, in two alternate poses, complete with clothing and three alternate fur colors. This image recieved much more positive reaction than the image on the left.
Were these drawings real? fake? A way to test the waters of fan reaction, or some bored artist messing with people’s heads? Though largely dismissed as the latter, there was still some doubt.
On January 20th, the same day as Barack Obama rode a wave of change into the White House, FCT announced its own form of change: a special TV program to be aired on TokyoMX three days later that would, among other things, announce the new mascot.
Hours before the initial announcement, the following photos were released onto the subscriber-only FC Tokyo imode website:
Now, I’ll be honest; while that first image scared the living hell out of me, this isn’t as bad. Certainly not compared to the naked yellow horror above (which, as it turns out, was the illustration submitted for a trademark patent; the character was naked for legal reasons, apparently). It, named Tokyo Dorompa (東京ドロンパ), is a tanuki, a shape-shifting animal that is popular in Japanese mythology (there’s also a real tanuki species generally referred to as a “raccoon dog”, but it doesn’t shape-shift).
According to the official press release, Dorompa was born on October 1st 1998 in Azabu-Mamiana-cho, in the Minato ward of Tokyo. Mamiana (狸穴) translates as “tanuki nest” if you want to play fast and loose with things, so I guess that’s as good a place as any. Azabu-Mamiana is situated between Roppongi and Tokyo Tower, which helps to establish Dorompa as being a true child of the city and surely a recipient of taunting by drunken foreigners.
As tanuki have learned how to shapeshift, Dorompa has managed to take “human” form, except for his tail, which obviously cannot be changed. There’s also no mention of the grossly oversized testicles which the mythical tanuki are believed to have, even though that would make him that much more awesome. Seriously, how great would it be to say “my mascot has bigger balls than yours” and mean it? But I digress.
Noted for his ability to appear in a flash and disappear just as quickly (ドロンと行く, “to disappear unnoticed”）, his friends quickly took to calling him Dorompa (ドロンパ). He was first introduced to soccer when, at the age of 6, his tanuki father took him to the National Stadium to watch FC Tokyo take on the Urawa Reds in the finals of the Nabisco Cup on November 3rd, 2004. Quoting the press release, “Though it was his first time watching soccer, Dorompa was overwhelmed at the sight of a stadium covered in blue and red banners [note: the majority of the stadium was probably covered in red banners as Urawa fans outnumbered Tokyo fans by a good amount]. Additionally, he was so moved by FCT’s victory despite being down a player that his tail shook with emotion.”
Continuing quoting, “4 years later, Dorompa was now easily recognizable within the tanuki community as an FC Tokyo fan. He unexpectedly recieved an offer from the team to become their official mascot and immediately started looking forward to performing for the fans.”
His character traits include:
- Unparalelled motor reflexes. Special skills include dancing and rollerblading.
- Good sense of fashion.
- Energetic to the point of being scatterbrained.
- Strong sense of justice, fiery temper but willing to cry, cares about his community and loves bringing a smile to peoples’ faces.
In Dorompa’s case, “tanuki” isn’t just an animal but a pun drawn from different readings of “ta” (他, “others”) and “nuki” (the stem form of nuku/抜く, “to overtake”). In the concept of competition it’s a cute meaning, “to overtake our opponents.” Apparently “nuku” is also slang for ejaculation so I’m counting down the days until some seriously messed up mascot porn drawings start showing up on 2channel.
So, there you have it. Dorompa was introduced in this week’s episode of Tokyo Hotline on TokyoMX, where you can see how he moves. It appears that the mascot comes equipped with rollerblade shoes, possibly separate shoes that bounce on springs, a boombox, and a voice that sounds like an alien gargling hot asphalt. So basically as long as he shuts up, I don’t think anyone will have a problem with the new tanuki on the block.
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