Sunday 4 May 2008

Pal-Chan rocks!

Fuz Fuz writes:
As any self respecting S-Pa fan will tell you, we have one of the best mascots in the J-League. He's cute, he's funny, even the opposing fans applaud him and he gets invited to other stadiums. He cartwheels for each goal scored as we party in the aftermath of each victory. He shakes your hand as you enter the stadium. He gives out toys. His Puma pose during the match sponsors amuses us week after week. He likes "Loco Loco" as much as everyone else does. In short, he's fantastic. But what of the other J-League mascots? Are they cute? Funny? Useless? Spectacularly ugly? Let's take a look at the top three, in order of their greatness.

  • Number one: Of course, the star of the show, Pal-Chan! Explanation unnecessary.
  • Number two: Grampus Kun, for his undeniable cuteness. He is so cute that Shizza actually wanted to rate him above our own Pal, but as I'm biased and I'm the one writing this, he'll just have to make do with second best. Also, cute he may be, but he can't actually do much more than stand and wave his fins around.
  • Three: Jeffy, from Jef United. Joined by his bro Unity they are some of the oldest mascots, in existence before the J-league even started. J and U are very cute, but are clearly failing to inspire JEF to victory so far this year!


Grampus Kun - second only to Pal!

Now let's take a look at the worst mascots in the J-league. Rolling in with the positions of supremely ugly mascots are.....
  • Gamba Boy. What the hell? This is the land of cute, and that thing is plain ugly. And it's wearing girl's socks!
  • Kashiwa Reysol's mascot ain't much better - and no, its not a giant thong wearing panty thief - its Ray-Kun. He's supposed to be the Sun King - I don't see much shine from that team, so he clearly ain't doing his job!

Finally, some mascots we here at UK Ultras just don't like:
  • Reddia and Frendia, Urawa's green devil dog things. However appropriate for Reds to have evil marketing them, they just get right up my nose. And they didn't even bother putting in an appearance when the UK Ultras trekked all the way to Saitama stadium, so they are clearly useless. Should take a leaf out of Pal's book, and learn some dance routines!
  • Jubilo-Kun. Supposed to represent light and good luck- to us he represents good target practice. Now Shizza, where did we put that airgun?....

2 comments:

dillo said...

Hi,
I found an error of spelling...
PUL-chan ... P-"U"-L chan!!

Barry said...

Hi dillo!

Thanks for the message, and apologies for the slow reply!

Yeah, you're right, the spelling is P-U-L on all S-Pulse merchandise isn't it? But in English it seems more natural to spell it with A because of the sound difference in U and A.

It's kind of hard to translate katakana to English sometimes! :-)