Who Is Chiitan, Japan’s crazy mascot? Explained

Japan is host to some unique characters, but none so unhinged as Chiitan. Described as a 0-year-old fairy baby, the giant otter is the unofficial mascot of the Japanese city of Susaki.

Life-sized mascots aren’t unheard of in Japan. In fact, many similar characters are endorsed by their communities. Chiitan is not one of them. Susaki already has a mascot by the name of Shinjo-kun. This mascot takes on the visage of the extinct river otter with a ramen bowl as a hat. But don’t get the two confused. Chiitan is also an otter but with a turtle for a hat and a convoluted backstory. Shinjo-kun is accepted and Chiitan is not. Got it?

Chiitan first came to be in the form of a real small-clawed otter that became the mascot for the tourism board of the city. This, in turn, inspired the giant fairy baby otter with the same name, meant to celebrate the real mascot. But unlike the casual fun that mascots such as Shinjo-kun inspire, Chiitan went slightly off the rails. In 2019, John Oliver brought attention to the character when devoting a segment to Chiitan on his HBO series Last Week Tonight. In it, the former Daily Show host showed a number of wild antics that Chiitan the fairy baby would get into.

What happened to Chiitan?

Posted on Chiitan’s now-suspended Twitter (now X) page, these videos showed strange activities such as the otter flipping over a van and using a stripper pole in ways perhaps no one thought an otter ever would. Sadly for absolutely everyone involved, Chiitan was not long for this world. Susaki never officially endorsed the mascot and once the complaints from concerned citizens started rolling in, it was clear this wasn’t the tourism advertisement that officials of the city had been looking for.

Much of Chiitan’s content involved out-of-pocket and potentially violent behavior from the otter. No car within its vicinity was safe. This led to Susaki officially rejecting Chiitan and exiling him forever. It also had the tragic ramification of leaving Shinjo-kun alone as the Susaki mascot, prompting Oliver to make his own mascot, Chiijohn. This marked the tragic end to one of the gifts of the internet. The only remnant of the brief shining moment in time when nothing mattered is the Instagram account which remains active. It is rare when social media such as Twitter offers a shining jewel and not constant doom scrolling. Despite his anarchistic nature, Chiitan was a wonderful reprieve from the realities of real life. RIP, Chiitan. We will never see your like again.