Chiikawa, the little Japanese characters on every keyring

A little white creature with pink cheeks is hanging off a schoolbag on the train, and there's a whole wall of it in a shop window in Haymarket, next to a blue-capped one and a yellow one with long ears. Someone said it's Chiikawa (ちいかわ), and you'd like to know what that actually is.

It's a Japanese comic that grew into one of Japan's best-loved sets of characters, and once you know the three faces you'll spot them everywhere. Here's who's who, why Japan can't get enough of them, and where to find Chiikawa in Sydney and Melbourne.

Who's who: the three faces you keep seeing

Nearly everything you'll see on a keyring or a plush is one of three characters. They look alike at first, all round heads and pink cheeks, but colour and ears give each one away. If the face on your keyring isn't one of these, our guide to Japanese cartoon characters sorts out the rest.

Chiikawa is the shy one who cries easily. Hachiware is the Japanese word for a cat whose face marking splits like an upside-down V. The character is drawn from one, but its creator has said it isn't a cat. Usagi simply means rabbit, and it's the loud, greedy one who barely says a real word.

You'll meet a few friends on the goods too. Momonga, Japanese for flying squirrel, is one with huge eyes, and Kurimanju's head is shaped like a chestnut bun. Rakko, Japanese for sea otter, has a cross-shaped scar over one eye. It's one of the best monster hunters in the story. Shisa is drawn from the lion-dog statues that guard houses in Okinawa, Japan's southern islands.

Why is Chiikawa everywhere?

Chiikawa is short for "nanka chiisakute kawaii yatsu", which means "something kind of small and cute". It's the comic's title, and it's what its little creatures are called. Source: Kodansha, the comic's Japanese publisher

If it seems to have come from nowhere, it nearly did. The illustrator who signs as Nagano, who also designs mascots for Japanese companies and towns, started it in 2020 as a few panels at a time on X (Twitter). Kodansha, the Tokyo publisher behind Attack on Titan, then put it out as books.

A TV cartoon followed, as a one-minute segment inside Mezamashi TV, the breakfast news show on Fuji TV, one of Japan's main networks. That's why the episodes you'll find are so short.

Since then it's won the grand prize at Japan's Character Award three years running, the first character to do it. Its first film, Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island, opened in 447 Japanese cinemas through Toho, the studio behind Godzilla, and passed ten billion yen at the box office within a month. In Japan you'll meet it on convenience-store sweets, on wrapped trains and in its own shops at Tokyo Station, so the keyring you saw here is a small piece of something huge.

Is Chiikawa a kids' show?

It looks like one, and if you start watching you'll find it isn't quite. The cute faces sit on top of a world where the characters have to work for a living.

They earn money by pulling weeds and hunting monsters, jobs handed out by armoured figures who also run the shops. To get better pay they sit a weed-pulling exam, and Chiikawa failed it twice before it passed. Some of the monsters hunt the little creatures to eat them.

Kodansha sums it up as fun, a little sad and a bit hard, and publishes the books in its line for young adult men. Japan's news agency Kyodo put the film's success down to a deep story that reflects real society. That's the hook for grown-ups: small, soft creatures getting through tiring days together.

Where to find Chiikawa in Sydney and Melbourne

You'll find Chiikawa at the character-goods shops clustered around Haymarket and the city, which bring the goods in from Japan. Everything below was checked in October 2026 on each shop's own website.

• Sydney

  Little Orange

  A Japanese character-goods shop with its own Chiikawa range: plush keychains, phone mounts and more.

  Sussex Street, Haymarket

• Sydney

  Sugo Toys, City

  A collectables shop with a deep Chiikawa range: plush, keyrings, stationery and blind boxes.

  Quay Street, Haymarket

• Sydney

  Sugo Toys, Hurstville

  The same shop's second Sydney store.

  Hurstville

• Sydney

  Anime Kaika, City

  An anime-goods shop with Chiikawa capsule toys, blind boxes and plush, plus a lottery you can only play in store.

  Clarence Street

• Sydney

  Anime Kaika, Burwood

  The same shop's Burwood store.

  Burwood

• Sydney

  Twinkle Glory

  A gift shop with Chiikawa pouches, plush and hair accessories.

  World Square

• Sydney

  Isekai Gacha

  A capsule-toy and anime shop with Chiikawa blind boxes and the Chiikawa lottery.

  Liverpool Street

• Melbourne

  Melridai

  A Japanese character shop with a large Chiikawa range: plush, bag charms and blind boxes.

  Little Bourke Street

As a rough guide, capsule toys and blind boxes run from about $5 to $20, keyrings from about $15 to $40, and plush from about $35 to $55. Prices are a rough guide, not a quote.

Sugo Toys, Anime Kaika and Isekai Gacha also run Chiikawa ichiban kuji, a Japanese shop-counter lottery for prizes from one set. The little capsule-toy versions come out of the same Japanese machines covered in our guide to gashapon, Japan's capsule-toy machines.

To meet the characters before buying one, the official channel, Chiikawa Official on YouTube, loads in Australia, and it now carries an English dub of the one-minute episodes. Kinokuniya, the Japanese bookshop on George Street, lists the Japanese Chiikawa books online.

Common questions

Chiikawa's a small, easy way into what Japan is enjoying right now. If it leaves you curious for more, our Japanese snacks are delivered across Australia, and if you're new to all of it, start here. Know a Chiikawa shop we've missed? Tell us.

Photographs — from Wikimedia Commons, used under the licences shown: Top photograph by Tieguanyin1990 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Chiikawa sweets by KKPCW (CC BY-SA 4.0); Hong Kong tram by km30192002 (CC BY 4.0).