Chiitan

About

Chiitan is an unofficial Japanese mascot for the town of Susaki based off a real otter of the same name. The mascot Chiitan grew popular online for its bizarre stunts and physical comedy antics. Susaki had previously named the real otter an honorary ambassador of tourism, but following the surge in mascot Chiitan's popularity, fired the real otter in an effort to disassociate from the mascot. In June 2024, Chiitan regained viral popularity online thanks to Chiitan Ads on X / Twitter.

Origin

In January of 2018, the government of Susaki, Japan capitalized on the social media popularity of an otter named Chiitan^[1] by naming the otter an honorary ambassador of tourism (otter Chiitan shown below).

The town's official mascot is named Shinjokun. It is an otter who wears a bowl of noodles on its head and participates in tame, family-friendly activities (shown below).^[2]

After the otter Chiitan was named ambassador of tourism, a mascot version of Chiitan, who may share a designer with Shinjokun,^[3] began posting on social media (first YouTube video shown below). The mascot was designed by Charando.^[1]

Spread

Over the course of 2018, the mascot version of Chiitan grew popular with antics including silly stunts, falling, and mild violence. To date, its most popular YouTube video is a compilation of some of these moments, posted June 3rd, 2018 and gaining over 1.3 million views (shown below, left). Its second most popular video with 1.1 million views shows it playing with children in a park (shown below, right).

The mascot developed a significant social media presence, garnering over 275,000 YouTube subscribers^[4] and 890,000 Twitter followers.^[5] A second, unverified account posting Chiitan videos, @love2chiitan,^[6] has over 1.28 million subscribers. It has over 612,000 followers on Instagram.^[7]

However, the antics of the unofficial Chiitan mascot displeased the government of Susaki, causing them to fire the otter Chiitan as the city's honorary ambassador of tourism on January 18th, 2019.^[8] Susaki is consulting a lawyer to look into if money made by the Chiitan mascot should go to city coffers.^[1]

Chiitan X (Twitter) Ads

Chiitan Twitter Ads refers to a series of advertisements on X / Twitter bought by Japanese mascot Chiitan. The physical comedy videos, which introduce Chiitan as "the god of advertising" in the world, achieved widespread recognition on X / Twitter in 2024 and inspired discussions and memes, with some users blocking Chiitan and others praising the mascot for displacing regular ads.

Chiitan Hornyposting

In late June 2024, following the spread of Chiitan Twitter Ads, Chiitan regained viral popularity on X / Twitter, with users sharing memes and fan art of the character, including fan art sexualizing the person inside the mascot costume. For example, on June 28th, 2024, X^[9] user @PearlteaRizzy posted a suggestive fan art that received over 2,000 reposts and 17,000 likes in three days (shown below, left). On June 30th, 2024, X^[10] user @dingotoad posted fan art that gained over 23,000 reposts and 291,000 likes in two years (shown below, right).

The suggestive fan art of the character prompted a viral discussion on X / Twitter, with some users expressing concerns over artists sexualizing the mascot who is supposed to be a baby otter. For example, X^[11] user @brndxix wrote, "you people are sick", with the post gaining over 2,400 reposts and 81,000 likes in three days (shown below, left). On June 30th, 2024, X^[12] user @noodleshopkenz urged others not to draw suggestive fan art of the character, with the post (shown below, right) garnering over 8,000 reposts and 171,000 likes in two days.

Various Examples

Search Interest