Ken Matsudaira Hello Kitty Collaboration Announced

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Hello Kitty, Sanrio will have an “amigo” collaboration with Ken Matsudaira. Designs featuring Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel wearing traditional Japanese garb and doing their best with Matsuken Samba with their stubby little limbs.

The entire image that Sanrio shared has an almost Y2K kind of feel. The hearts and “Ken Matsudaira x Hello Kitty” text look bedazzled, likely to match the bedazzled kimono that Matsudaira is wearing. As mentioned earlier, Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel are also wearing kimonos. Hello Kitty’s bow has a more Japanese aesthetic to it, and Dear Daniel is sporting a traditional chonmage hairstyle.

Ken Matsudaira, or Matsuken, is a Japanese actor and musician, with “Matsuken Samba II” as his most popular song. Like how almost a decade later, Psy gained popularity for “Gangnam Style” due to both the song and the music video, “Matsuken Samba II” gained attention due to him dressed like someone from the Edo period (but with a glittery kimono) and his dance. The song itself remained on the Oricon Top 100 chart for over a year and he’s still associated with it today. A game even came out in 2021 that was a collaboration between Matsuken and the Arima Kinen in which you had to watch the race together without inadvertently making him break out into a samba.

More information on the Ken Matsudaira and Sanrio collaboration, including merchandise, will appear at a later date.