“I HELD THE PEN. JAPAN PUT THE SOUL IN.”: Pudgy Penguins’ Yummy Found Inspiration In The Land Of The Rising Sun And Now He’s Bringing WagyuBrands’ Macarune To Robinhood Chain!
2 hours ago
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From its neon lit streets to its cherry blossom lined temples, it’s easy to feel inspired by the natural beauty of Japan and its culture. That’s exactly what happened to one Pudgy Penguin, who traveled to the Land of the Rising Sun for work and wound up “claiming” a character of his own named Macarune that he’s now sharing with the world!
You’ve probably seen Yummy the artist on the timeline, sharing photos of his panda bear hat wearing Pudgy Penguin and wishing everyone a GM just about every day. But what you may not have known is that he took part in a six month Japanese accelerator program last year, and while he came for work, he couldn’t help but be inspired by everything he saw.
“Japan. It will change you. In a good way,” he told the Gazette. “I immersed myself into every lil cafe, shop, bar, alley restaurant, arcade, tea house, shrine, mountain, trail that I could find that wasn’t touristy. That’s where you find THE REAL PEOPLE. THE REAL STORIES. THAT is where LIFE HAPPENS.”
As he backpacked from one mountain range to the next, visited with locals, wandered through cafés, shops, temples, and shrines, and took in the country around him, Yummy became increasingly fascinated by Japan’s character culture and the idea of kyara.
Yummy leanred it wasn’t simply about creating IP that people could look at. It was about creating a character people could carry with them, wear, claim as their own, and grow alongside.
“I didn’t walk in as an expert on kyara. I witnessed it before I had a word for it,” he said. “That mattered. If I’d arrived with fixed canon, I don’t think the same magic would have landed.”
Throughout his travels, Yummy sat with that idea. Then, one night inside a small Osaka alley bar, it all came together and, in his eyes, Macarune was truly born.
"I didn’t announce Macarune. He got claimed,” Yummy said. “I don’t like saying I created him. I held the pen. Japan put the soul in. He was born the way Japanese things are born — someone loved him long enough that he started looking back. The designer puts a face on a feeling other people will wear. That role has weight because the character outlives the drawing. Fans care more about the kyara’s presence than the founder’s myth. So I honor both: I drew him. They finished the birth. It is way bigger than me.”
Tonight, Yummy’s Macarune character is minting on Robinhood Chain via OpenSea, and everyone and anyone is invited to pick one up for 0.015 ETH here: https://opensea.io/collection/macarune/overview
“In the West a character often asks: watch me,” Yummy said. “In Japan a kyara asks: take me with you. That is why an embroidered patch of Macarune in a small alley bar in Osaka could finish an origin story birth that a drawing alone could not.”
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