Tokage’s Kigurumi and the Sumikko Gurashi Choco Egg Tradition

Sumikko Gurashi Tokage Kigurumi Figure from Furuta Choco Egg

The Franchise Behind the Figure, and Tokage’s Double Identity

Sumikko Gurashi is a character franchise created by San-X — the Japanese company behind Rilakkuma and Tarepanda — and launched in 2012 around a gently self-deprecating premise: a cast of introverted characters who feel most at ease tucked into a corner. What began as stationery and plush toys grew into a full media property, reaching a wide audience with a theatrical anime film in 2019. The franchise has since expanded into TV animation, mobile games, and an extensive range of licensed merchandise.

Tokage — the word simply means “lizard” in Japanese — is one of the franchise’s central characters. Pale green and rounded, Tokage carries an unusual piece of official lore: it is actually a relative of the dinosaurs, surviving into the modern era by passing itself off as an ordinary lizard. That unresolved tension between two identities — too ancient to fit in as a lizard, too present-day to claim the dinosaur title — defines the character’s personality and its place in the Sumikko Gurashi lineup.

A Kigurumi Costume with Its Own Identity Question

In this figure, Tokage is wearing a kigurumi — the Japanese term for a full-body animal costume, a form associated in Japanese culture with mascot characters and character-themed loungewear. The costume features light blue coloring, three short spikes on the head, a yellow beak-like element on the forehead, and a white oval on the belly. These details closely match the appearance of Penguin?, another core Sumikko Gurashi character who carries its own form of uncertainty: Penguin? is not entirely sure whether it is actually a penguin at all.

The pairing of a character unsure of being a lizard dressed as a character unsure of being a penguin has a kind of quiet internal logic that fits the franchise well. It should be noted that the research behind this article could not confirm whether Furuta officially designated this as a “Penguin? kigurumi” specifically — but the visual match is clear. The kigurumi motif — characters dressed as other characters — is a recurring theme across Sumikko Gurashi merchandise, appearing in plush toys, mascots, and food-toy lines alike.

Furuta Choco Egg and Japan’s Shokugan Tradition

This figure belongs to the shokugan category — a Japanese genre whose name combines the words for “food” and “toy,” describing small collectible figures sold packaged with confectionery. Furuta Confectionery, founded in 1952 and headquartered in Higashiosaka, launched its Choco Egg line in 1999. The format uses a hollow chocolate egg to conceal a small capsule holding a miniature figure; the contents remain unknown until the egg is opened, making it a blind-box purchase by design. Since that debut, the line has encompassed numerous licensed series, and Furuta’s collaboration with San-X on Sumikko Gurashi has continued across multiple releases in the late 2010s and 2020s.

Choco Egg series are distributed through Japanese convenience stores, supermarkets, and toy retailers, with no official international sales network. For Sumikko Gurashi fans in North America, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere — a community that has grown alongside the franchise’s expanding reach — import channels provide the primary path to these figures. This particular piece stands on a circular yellow base, making it self-supporting and easy to display alongside other characters from the same series.