Rival Nara mascots make peace
On October 25th, Hikonyan, the popular mascot of Hikone Castle, hosted a Japanese mascot festival. Mascots from all over Japan came to the event, and Mainichi has a photo gallery showing many of them.
Two of the mascots who attended were Sento-kun and Namu-kun, rivals competing for recognition as the main mascot celebrating the 1,300th anniversary of Nara becoming capital of Japan. For much of the event, they keep their distance from each other, independently doing PR work for Nara. It looked as though they would continue to be bitter rivals, but then Hikonyan arranged for them to meet:
A friendship was formed, and it now seems they will work together to promote Nara. Unfortunately, it appears that Manto-kun, a Nara mascot created by internet users who were unsatisfied with Sento-kun, was not present at the event.
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