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Sanrio teams up with murder reincarnation anime Oshi no Ko for adorable new merch line

Casey Baseel Oct 27, 2023
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Will Cinnamoroll be able to help Aqua kill his father?

Earlier this year, we saw the latest collaboration between Sanrio and Sailor Moon. It’s a team-up that makes a lot of sense, as the colorful, twinkly aesthetics of the magical girl franchise mesh well with those of Hello Kitty and her friends.

Now Sanrio is teaming up with another hit anime series, and once again it’s one that looks like it’d be an obvious pairing, given their shared penchant for pastel frilliness. Looks, though, can be deceiving, and the twist is that Sanrio is collaborating with Oshi no Ko.

The condensed, simplified version (seriously) of Oshi no Ko’s plot is that pregnant idol singer Ai Hoshino’s obstetrician-gynecologist is murdered by one of her fans, then reincarnated as Ai’s son, Aqua, when he’s born. Meanwhile, Aqua’s twin sister, Ruby, is the reincarnation of another of the doctor’s patients who was a fan of Aqua’s before passing away. While the twins are still toddlers, the same fan who killed the doctor murders Ai, then kills himself. Aqua and Ruby then enter the show business world as teenagers, but for Aqua this is actually just a means to an end, as his true goal is to use the professional connections he makes to track down his biological father, who he believes was an accomplice to Ai’s murder, and kill him in an act of revenge.

▼ Wow! Look how cute Aqua and Cinnamoroll are together!

To be fair, this is at least the second time that Sanrio has had an anime crossover involving violent deaths. All of that dark drama is pushed to the side, though, in the Sanrio/Oshi no Ko collaboration merch lineup, which features brand-new illustrations from Oshi no Ko anime character designer Kanna Hirayama. Aside from Aqua/Cinnamoroll, the pairings are…

▼ Ai and Little Twin Stars Kiki and Lala

▼ Ruby and Hello Kitty

▼ Kana and My Melody

▼ Memcho and Pompompurin

▼ Akane and Kuromi

The Sanrio/Oshi no Ko merch is being offered through media publisher Kadokawa’s Kujibikodo online-purchase prize lottery. Similar to Bandai’s Ichibankuji, Kujibikodo’s prizes are grouped into different classes. At the very top, in the S-rank, are 170-centimeter (66.9-inch) tapestries, with winners able to choose which of the six illustrations they want.

For the remaining classes, which of the six character pairings you get is random.

▼ A Rank: 21 by 14.8-centimeter acrylic art panels

▼ B Rank: Acrylic character standees (roughly 14 centimeters tall)

▼ C Rank: Key holders

▼ D Rank: Mini paper portraits (13.5 centimeters tall, two versions for each character)

▼ E Rank: pins (also two designs per character)

As Kujibikodo is an entirely online lottery, there’s no physical paper slip to draw out of a box like with Ichibankuji. Kadokawa says, though, that the chances of drawing each prize is as follows:

● S rank: 1 in 100
● A rank: 12 in 100
● B rank: 12 in 100
● C rank: 14 in 100
● D rank: 28 in 100
● E rank: 33 in 100

▼ Yes, this means that you have an equal chance of winning the A and B prizes, so we’re not sure how/why one is ranked higher than the other.

The Sanrio/Oshi no Ko Kujibikodo is going on now, priced at 770 yen (US$5.15) per play (not including delivery charges), through the Kujibikodo official website here, and will be continuing until November 16. And if you’re not able to snag the exact prize you want, you can take heart in knowing that Kadokawa says the Kujibikodo lottery is merely the “first round” of the Sanrio/Oshi no Ko tie-up.

Source: PR Times, Kujibikodo
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: PR Times, Kujibikodo, Pakutaso
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