Hello Kitty Meets Sadako on a Japanese Choco Egg Plus Figure

Hello Kitty × Sadako Collaboration Choco Egg Plus Figure

A Cartoon Icon Steps Into a Horror Legend’s Shoes

This figure reimagines Hello Kitty as Sadako — the long-haired ghost who became the defining image of the Ring franchise. In the design, a curtain of black hair covers most of Kitty’s face, leaving only her nose, eyes, and the edge of a turquoise garment visible through the strands, directly mirroring Sadako’s trademark visual of a face half-concealed by hair. The pink bow remains at the very top of her head, a deliberate reminder of who this actually is beneath the horror trappings. She stands on a grey, brick-patterned well base that references the cursed well from which Sadako famously emerges in the films. The contrast between Sanrio’s cheerful signature element and J-horror imagery is the point of the design, not an accident.

Two Franchises That Crossed the Pacific

Hello Kitty was created by Sanrio in 1974. The character — a white cat with no mouth, distinguished by a small bow over one ear — has since been licensed across more than 130 countries and into virtually every category of consumer goods. In recent years, Sanrio has pursued collaborations with horror and subculture properties, playing on the sharp contrast between Hello Kitty’s famously soft image and darker themes.

Sadako comes from Koji Suzuki’s 1991 novel Ring, which was adapted into a film in 1998 by director Hideo Nakata. The character’s visual identity — black hair obscuring her face, a slow emergence from a well — defined the look of J-horror internationally. A Hollywood remake, The Ring, arrived in 2002 and brought that imagery to a much wider audience; Sadako remains one of the most recognized horror characters worldwide. These two IPs rarely occupy the same shelf, which is part of what makes a collaboration between them a genuinely distinct object.

Shokugan: The Japanese Food-Toy Tradition

This figure belongs to the Choco Egg Plus series, a line associated with Choco Egg — a shokugan brand launched by Furuta Confectionery in 1999. Shokugan (the term translates roughly as “food toy”) refers to a category specific to Japan: collectible figures sold packaged alongside candy or chocolate through ordinary retail channels — convenience stores, supermarkets, and toy shops. The format differs from gashapon, which are dispensed through vending machines; shokugan are shelf products bought as packaged goods. Furuta’s Choco Egg became one of the best-known names in the category during the shokugan expansion of the late 1990s and 2000s. The “Plus” designation suggests a variation on the standard Choco Egg format, though the specific details of the sub-line are not fully confirmed from available information. The exact release period for this collaboration figure is also not confirmed, but the broader trend of Sanrio characters appearing in horror-themed crossover merchandise became notably more visible from the late 2010s onward. Shokugan products are produced for the Japanese domestic market, with limited official distribution outside Japan — a fact that has long been part of their appeal for international collectors.