What Yatterman Fans Know About the Mitsuya Cider Campaign Figure

Yatterman-2 Mitsuya Cider Campaign Figure Keychain

The Character and the Series She Comes From

Yatterman-2’s real name is Ai Kaminari — the girlfriend of protagonist Gan Takada (Yatterman-1) and the female lead of Tatsunoko Production’s long-running animated series Yatterman. Together, the two heroes battle the comically persistent Doronbo Gang across the show’s 108 episodes, which aired on Yomiuri TV and the NTV network from 1977 to 1979. Yatterman was the second entry in Tatsunoko’s Time Bokan Series, a franchise of action-comedy shows that helped shape Japanese animation’s lighter hero genre.

Ai’s look is one of the most distinctive in the Tatsunoko catalog: a pink jumpsuit with red V-trim on the chest and sleeves, blonde hair, a purple eye mask, a red cap bearing a silver “X” emblem, purple gloves, and red heels. That “X” motif threads through her whole character design and into her weapons. The figure renders her in a dynamic action pose, which suits the energetic, acrobatic image she projects throughout the series. Tatsunoko brought the franchise back with a full remake in 2008–2009 (60 episodes), followed by the spinoff Yatterman Night in 2015 and a live-action theatrical film in 2009, directed by Takashi Miike — evidence of how durably the property has held its place in Japanese popular culture across multiple generations.

A Campaign Premium, Not a Store Product

This figure keychain is what the Japanese collectibles world calls a non-sale item: it was never stocked on a shelf or priced for retail. It is a campaign premium produced by Mitsuya Cider, the carbonated soft drink brand manufactured by Asahi Soft Drinks. Mitsuya Cider traces its history to 1884 and has a well-documented practice of running tie-up campaigns with anime and manga properties. Premiums of this kind were typically obtained through purchase-and-apply programs, code-entry campaigns, or in-store giveaways — not purchased outright. Once the campaign window closed, distribution stopped.

The figure comes attached to a silver ball chain, designed to function as a keychain or bag charm. The exact campaign it belongs to is not definitively confirmed from the item itself, though the molding style and finish are consistent with Japanese manufacturing from the 2000s onward, and the 2008–2009 remake period saw a significant volume of Yatterman tie-up merchandise produced alongside it. The figure’s manufacturer is not identified on the piece itself — standard practice for this category of promotional goods, which are routinely commissioned without maker attribution. The intellectual property belongs to Tatsunoko Production, founded in 1962, which has continuously licensed Yatterman for collaborations of this kind.

Why Tatsunoko Campaign Items Draw International Interest

Tatsunoko Production’s output has resonated well beyond Japan. International audiences encountered the studio through Science Ninja Team Gatchaman — distributed in the United States as G-Force and Battle of the Planets — and through Casshern, among other properties. Yatterman itself was distributed in North America by King Features Syndicate during the 1980s, giving the franchise genuine name recognition in the English-speaking world.

Mitsuya Cider’s campaign premiums were aimed squarely at Japanese consumers and circulated through domestic channels only, meaning very few pieces found their way abroad at the time of distribution. Campaign-exclusive items like this one exist in untracked quantities — once a promotion ends, there is no ongoing production and no restock. For collectors who follow Tatsunoko’s history on either side of the Pacific, original Japanese domestic campaign goods represent a category of material that rarely surfaces outside Japan at all.