Mysterious sumo stickers appearing all over Tokyo
NTV’s “Real Time News” reports on sumo face stickers that seem to be popping up all over the place in Tokyo:
Their reporter walks around pointing out all the stickers he can spot. Their search finds a total of 87 in just the Ginza area. A short search of Roppongi also finds 10 stickers. They even find one stuck to a sign at the Kokugikan!
The illustrator who created the stickers seems to have produced many variations of the sumo face. Some smile, others don’t. Some are white, others are not. Most pedestrians find them neither pretty or cute.
An expert says the stickers first began appearing last summer. Their creator probably spent some time checking for reactions on the internet, and when they began to appear, he escalated his activities to build an even greater reaction. This act of vandalism is compared to a similar case of panda stickers appearing all over Fukuoka city, and both vandals are assumed to be seeking attention.
The person responsible has not yet been identified, but a taxi driver in Tokyo says he saw a skater putting up one of the stickers. Others say that it is the work of a famous graffiti artist who is in his early thirties. Whoever it is, they must be extremely happy to see their work has made it onto the TV news. (At the end of the report, the news anchors point out that their report may actually encourage further acts of vandalism — oops!)
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Categories: General Japan