Unfortunately this was languishing in my draft queue for over a year, but @azflashjp was reflecting on the end of the Heisei era in Japan (1989-2019), where over the latter half of the era we saw the start of the yuru-chara craze:

Hikonyan (2006) from Hikone, Shiga: The start of the “yuru-chara boom”

Kumamon (2010) from Kumamoto Prefecture: The real catalyst that led to the proliferation of yuru-chara throughout the country

Funassyi (2012) from Funabashi, Chiba: The yuru-chara for the real fans, some extremely dedicated!

The Reiwa era (which started in May last year) is certainly posing new challenges for yuru-chara. Although the numbers of local characters in Japan is certainly on the decline, and the Yuru-Chara Grand Prix comes to a close this year, many of the more established mascots still have a healthy fan base - even in these challenging times where no one has been able to meet most of them for months. There still seems to be a place for this abundance of mascots in Japan, just maybe without the excesses and madness of the past decade.

