Adventures in Japantown

Back in September, I had the opportunity to go and visit my baby sister in San Francisco and attend the "J-Pop Festival" held in Japantown. It was a great experience and a lot of fun! The funny part about our trip, is that we had intended on going to San Francisco to take part in the "Moon Festival" held in Chinatown. Needless to say we spent pretty much the entire weekend in Japantown.

One of the exciting attractions for the J-pop festival, was that they had Mori Chack there signing t-shirts! What? You don't know who Mori Chack is? Mori Chack is the man who created Gloomy Bears. Let me give you a little background about Gloomy Bears.

I had not even heard of Gloomy Bears until early September, when I was staying at a friend's house for a disc golf tournament. One of the other ladies that was there, Miranda, filled me in on the exciting tale of Gloomy Bears. I noticed a cute little bear on her cell phone, and asked her about it. Miranda is a person full of amazing life experiences, like many people. If I were to start writing biographies on people, I would love to write one on Miranda, it seems that every time I spend time with her, I learn something new.

One of the experiences that Miranda had was living in Japan for a time as an Illustrator. When Miranda was telling me about Gloomy Bears she began by explaining that there is a district in Japan, where artists gather to sell their art. They might be really good, really bad, but they are all there. Apparently, Mori Chack started there as an artist, until someone discovered his unique artwork and the story behind it.

Gloomy was an abandoned Grizzly bear, who was adopted by the kid, Pitty. This child loved and cared for Gloomy, and Gloomy loved Pitty. Gloomy grew older and started growing claws, and teeth, and because bears will be bears, he attacks Pitty.

So all of this artwork that Mori Chack created was this adorable pink bear gruesomely attacking children, specifically, a little boy named Pitty. Miranda told me about a new Japanese store that opened up in the Bend area, and that when she made her first visit she told the cashier that she was looking for one thing. If they did not have this one thing she would not consider them a legitimate Japanese store. She asked if they had any Gloomy Bears, and sure enough, they had a whole wall full of Gloomy Bear merchandise. This is where Miranda found her cute little keychains that were on her phone and her keys.

I didn't end up being able to get an autographed t-shirt by Mori Chack, because the time we got there all of the shirts were sold out and they weren't allowing any other merchandise to get signed. But I did get a some sweet pictures:

Mori Chack signing a bear's head, there is even a little drawing on it! :)


Mori Chack and a fan!


And this was the back of her hat, so awesome!



In our shopping around Japantown, I found some of my own must-have Gloomy Bear merchandise:




I know that it's kind of horrible, the idea of this bear beating up this kid, but it really appeals to me. I think that part of it is that I have never understood the infatuation with Teddy Bears, because bears are only kind of cute and they aren't sweet either (same with Hippos, but that's another story). These Gloomy bears are ridiculously adorable, but still have the realistic side that they are bears and they are not nice.