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Hajimemashite! I'm Fukuppy Text: Hajimemashite! (Pleased to meet you) "Fukuppy" desu. (I'm Fukuppy)

Is this the mascot of the Fukushima dai-ichi nuclear accident?

(Example tweet)

#Fukushima #FukNuke #FUBAR now officially called #Fukuppy by #TEPCO

Andrew Grimm
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  • Does anyone claim that it is the mascot of the Fukushima dai-ichi nuclear accident? –  Oct 13 '13 at 15:34
  • @Articuno I gave an example tweet - you can find other on twitter. – Andrew Grimm Oct 13 '13 at 21:33
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    "Is this the mascot of the Fukushima dai-ichi nuclear accident?" -- *According to whom?* This question is non-senseical, unless there is some organization which assigns mascots to historical events. To my knowledge no such organization exists. – Flimzy Oct 13 '13 at 23:24
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    @Flimzy I gave an example of the claim. There's no requirement that claims are non-non-sensical. – Andrew Grimm Oct 14 '13 at 00:20
  • Good luck writing uppy in any of the Japanese written languages... – AthomSfere Oct 14 '13 at 00:23
  • For those questioning notability: search twitter, you'll find lots of examples. – Andrew Grimm Oct 14 '13 at 00:43
  • @AndrewGrimm Hajimemashite, desu and finally douzo yoroshiku is the standard phrase when meeting a Japanese person for the first time, and does more or less translate as stated. The problem is that Japanese vowels are a,i,u,e,o so Fu, Ku are OK, double consonants can also be done with a small tsu (http://japanese.about.com/library/blqow29.htm) but there is no letter to end with Y, as Y is used as　with one of the vowels and a modifier. For example Tokyo (東京　とうきよう) If we literally write the Hirigana for Tokyo it is To-Ki-Yo-U. 'py' does not fit the Japanese alphabets. – AthomSfere Oct 14 '13 at 11:51
  • @AndrewGrimm Yep, it is. Teach me not to proof read. But what I was trying get at was that it does not make sense "English" word that is obviously not English so closely follow the Japanese phonetics system only to be so comically bad. It seems more likely someone decided to mess with English minds and how we would read Fukuppy. – AthomSfere Oct 14 '13 at 12:10
  • The mascot was picked up by the [Huffington Post](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/fukuppy-fukushima-mascot_n_4101252.html?utm_hp_ref=business). – rjzii Oct 16 '13 at 19:04

2 Answers2

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No, it's the wrong Fukushima. The mascot is for Fukushima Industries Corporation, founded by Nobuo Fukushima in Osaka, where it is still headquartered. The name of the company has nothing to do with the prefecture affected by the nuclear accident. Its business is fridges, not nuclear reactors.

The mascot does not belong to TEPCO.

Andrew Grimm
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  • The question isn't whether it's a mascot for Fukushima Industries Corporation, but whether it's a mascot for the accident. I've never heard of a historical event having a mascot, which I think makes the question rather rediculous, but in any case, this does not answer the question. – Flimzy Oct 13 '13 at 23:21
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    @Flimzy if it's the mascot for Fukushima Industries Corporation, then it's not the mascot for the nuclear accident. – Andrew Grimm Oct 14 '13 at 00:29
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    @AndrewGrimm, even though it's unlikely, it could still be the mascot of both the corporation and the incident. This possibility isn't excluded from your answer. – Kenshin Oct 14 '13 at 01:14
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    "if it's the mascot for Fukushima Industries Corporation, then it's not the mascot for the nuclear accident" Again, according to whom? Who says they can't both use the same mascot? Again, unless there's an authoritative organization which enforces such a rule, there is no such rule. – Flimzy Oct 14 '13 at 12:52
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    Many organizations share mascots. Consider the Arizona Cardinals (American football team) and the St. Louis Cardinals (Baseball team). Also consider the 74 U.S. colleges who use the [Eagle](http://www.ehow.com/info_7872084_common-school-mascots.html) as their mascot. – Flimzy Oct 14 '13 at 13:11
  • According to Wikipedia, Fukushima means "Good-Fortune Island" and is also the nae of a prefecture, several towns and a city, and is also a surname. – ChrisW Oct 14 '13 at 14:41
  • @Flimzy I've found a source saying that the mascot does not belong to TEPCO. Does that help? – Andrew Grimm Oct 15 '13 at 11:15
  • @AndrewGrimm: Yes. Much improved. – Flimzy Oct 15 '13 at 13:44
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This mascot has absolutely nothing to do with Fukushima the prefecture, the nuclear plant or anything related to the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster. It is purely a mascot for an Osaka-based company created with a name that, when pronounced as intended in Japanese ("Foo Koo Pee"), has no relation to what people think it spells. The company's mistake is using unnecessary English letters in showing the character.

Everyone else's mistake is how they think it's pronounced.

AManInJapan
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  • [Welcome to Skeptics](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/1505)! Please [provide some references](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer) to support your claims. – Larian LeQuella Oct 16 '13 at 01:37