Meet Chiikawa’s Hachiware as a Sports-Themed Sofubi

Hachiware Chiikawa Friends 4 Sports Cut Sofubi Figure

Nagano’s Webcomic Phenomenon

Chiikawa — full title Chiikawa: Nanka Chiisakute Kawaii Yatsu — is the creation of Japanese illustrator and manga artist Nagano. It began in 2020 as a series of short illustrations posted to Twitter (now X), and the same year it expanded into a serialized webcomic on Shonen Jump+, Shueisha’s digital comics platform. A short-form television anime followed in April 2022, broadcast on TV Asahi affiliates and made available on YouTube shortly after each episode airs. Within a few years, Chiikawa became one of the largest pop-culture phenomena in 2020s Japan, with a merchandise footprint spanning a very wide range of product categories.

This figure belongs to the Chiikawa Friends line of candy-toy sofubi figures — specifically the fourth release in that series, presented in the “Sports Cut” variant, a name indicating a themed treatment applied to the character’s design or pose.

Sofubi Figures and the Shokugan Tradition

Shokugan describes a product format that is almost entirely native to Japan: a small collectible toy bundled with a piece of candy or confectionery and sold through convenience stores, supermarkets, and traditional sweet shops. The format has been part of Japanese retail since the 1970s and remains widely distributed today. Releases typically include several character variants within a single run, and assembling a complete set has long been central to how the format is enjoyed.

The figures themselves are made from sofubi — soft vinyl — a manufacturing method with deep roots in Japanese toy history. Sofubi came into wide use in the 1960s and 70s for kaiju and hero character figures, including toys based on Ultraman monsters and Kamen Rider characters. Its defining quality is a soft, slightly pliable feel combined with rounded, gently sculpted forms that harder plastics cannot replicate. That texture and aesthetic have carried forward into modern character merchandise, and contemporary shokugan sofubi figures like this one continue that lineage.

Hachiware: The Character Behind the Figure

Hachiware is one of Chiikawa’s three central characters, alongside Chiikawa and Usagi. The name refers to the figure-eight “hachi” marking on the character’s head, a bicolor split pattern that evokes the classic look of a tuxedo cat. His familiar design — cat ears, large oval black eyes, a W-shaped mouth, small pink cheek markings, and compact stubby limbs — is rendered in sofubi form here.

In the comic and anime, Hachiware is portrayed as thoughtful, gentle, and a skilled cook, often serving as the steadiest presence among the three main characters. He is consistently recognized as one of the most popular characters in the franchise among fans.

For international collectors, the practical context is also worth noting. Shokugan is distributed almost entirely through domestic Japanese retail, with no established international distribution network. Most releases use a blind-box format in which the specific character inside is unknown at point of purchase. Receiving a confirmed Hachiware piece — in a distinct variant such as Sports Cut — removes that uncertainty entirely.