Sony set its sights on building a character empire to rival Hello Kitty, and its first contender turned out to be a bear who could not sleep.
It’s no secret that Japan runs on mascot power. If you walk into any bank or convenience store, there’s a high chance something with enormous eyes will stare back at you from a shelf. Sanrio turned this into a global empire, and even Hello Kitty recently got bumped to fifth place in the annual character rankings.
In the gaming space, Sony watched from the sidelines for decades, cycling through Crash Bandicoot, Sackboy, and Astro Bot without ever landing a keeper. Now it is finally ready to manufacture its own icon.
Sony is getting ready to enter the mascot wars
According to Nikkei, Sony Creative Products established a dedicated team to create hit characters and opened a special event space in Tokyo to showcase them. The division set a target of 10 billion yen, which is well over $60 million, in annual sales by 2030.
For context, a character in Japan is typically considered a hit if its merchandise generates between 2 and 3 billion yen per year.
Currently leading the charge is Nemu the Night Owl Bear, a character created in collaboration with Tokyo-based company Tsumupapa. Nemu is a bear who worries so much about the world’s problems that he can’t fall asleep,a nd he’s racked up over one million followers since release.
A Sony Creative Products executive told Nikkei that this “stress-filled society theme is resonating across borders,” and the bear has gained significant popularity in South Korea. So, merchandise and an anime featuring Nemu are currently in the works.
The move addresses a long-standing gap in Sony’s portfolio. While Nintendo has Mario and Sega has Sonic, Sony has never managed to keep a mascot in rotation for long. You might point to Crash Bandicoot, Toro Inoue, or Astro Bot, but none have stuck around long enough to become a household name worldwide.
Instead of committing, Sony Creative Products has spent years managing other companies’ characters, including the Peanuts gang, which it acquired in March 2026. It also holds the marketing rights to Pingu in Japan and reportedly doubled the penguin’s merchandise sales last year using haptic technology at exhibitions.
The company opened the Yurakucho Museum in Tokyo to host immersive character experiences complete with vibrating floors and gusts of wind, and it is betting that same infrastructure can turn Nemu into a star.
Whether a sleep-deprived bear can succeed where a robot and a bandicoot could not remains to be seen, but Sony is clearly done leaving mascot money on the table. When Dexerto reviewed Astro Bot, we called it a game that cemented the little robot as the brand’s mascot. Perhaps Nemu will finally give him some company.
