Fluff Family trips over a Molehill
Some of you may remember a trip I took to the Netherlands last summer. I noticed while wandering around Utrecht, this shop display:
I had only ever seen Miffy merchandise back in Japan/Taiwan and was a bit curious as to why there was such a dedicated section for it. Turns out that Miffy is super famous for actually being Dutch, where she was created in 1955 by artist Dick Bruna. Her real name is 'Nijntje Plui' (pronounced something like 'Nain-che Plowy'), meaning Bunny Fuzz - so cute! I did by myself 2 Miffy books in Amsterdam, the ones featuring an airplane and a bicycle, which also turn out to be the only books which feature Miffy's uncle and aunt respectively.
The website is absolutely adorable and has some pretty interesting information in the history section about Bruna's background, and has a few mini-films about his work. Miffy is extremely popular in Japan - I remember when I visited with my dad once the hotel lobby had a giant SUGAR STATUE of Miffy + Friend in a big sugar car. In fact, here is a photo... ignore me and my hideous glasses... to think this was only 5 years ago, oh my.
The Czech mole character Krteček (no idea how to pronounce that) by Zdeněk Miler (nor that) is surprisingly popular in Japan too, wonder why! Interesting - "The first episode of the cartoon was narrated, but Miler wanted the cartoon to be understood in every country of the world, so he decided to use his daughters as voice actors, reducing the speech to short non-figurative exclamations in order to express the mole's feelings and world perception."
Watch episodes of Krtek here, they're very sweet.
I had only ever seen Miffy merchandise back in Japan/Taiwan and was a bit curious as to why there was such a dedicated section for it. Turns out that Miffy is super famous for actually being Dutch, where she was created in 1955 by artist Dick Bruna. Her real name is 'Nijntje Plui' (pronounced something like 'Nain-che Plowy'), meaning Bunny Fuzz - so cute! I did by myself 2 Miffy books in Amsterdam, the ones featuring an airplane and a bicycle, which also turn out to be the only books which feature Miffy's uncle and aunt respectively.
The website is absolutely adorable and has some pretty interesting information in the history section about Bruna's background, and has a few mini-films about his work. Miffy is extremely popular in Japan - I remember when I visited with my dad once the hotel lobby had a giant SUGAR STATUE of Miffy + Friend in a big sugar car. In fact, here is a photo... ignore me and my hideous glasses... to think this was only 5 years ago, oh my.
The Czech mole character Krteček (no idea how to pronounce that) by Zdeněk Miler (nor that) is surprisingly popular in Japan too, wonder why! Interesting - "The first episode of the cartoon was narrated, but Miler wanted the cartoon to be understood in every country of the world, so he decided to use his daughters as voice actors, reducing the speech to short non-figurative exclamations in order to express the mole's feelings and world perception."
Watch episodes of Krtek here, they're very sweet.