NinjArigato, with more than 1 million views, is now showing the world the “charms of Japan”.

According to the Japan National Tourism Organization, the number of foreigners visiting Japan last year exceeded 36 million. This was 5 million more than the 31 million recorded in ’19 and a record high. And with Expo 2025 Osaka-Kansai, a world-class event to be held in Osaka this year, the record of more than 40 million visitors is now a realistic possibility.

However, behind the scenes, “overtourism” has become a problem in popular tourist destinations such as Kyoto and Mt. One of the expected solutions to this problem is to diversify the number of visitors to Japan.

The number of foreign tourists has been increasing in recent years, and urban areas and famous tourist spots are becoming more and more crowded. However, there are still wonderful regions, places, and cultures in Japan that are unknown to many foreign tourists. The big challenge is how to promote these to the rest of the world.

said Keisuke Kuroda, president of ARIGATO Corporation, which is engaged in activities to promote sightseeing spots that are still little known overseas.

Mr. Kuroda uses a yellow ninja character with rabbit-like ears called “NinjArigato” to promote Japan to the rest of the world.

Mr. Ryo Taniguchi, mascot designer for the Tokyo Olympics

The character was created based on the concept of “ARIGATO,” a universal Japanese greeting. The character was created with the concept of sending a message to the world.

The character was designed by Ryo Taniguchi, who also designed the mascots for the Tokyo 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Milaitowa and Someity. NinjArigato, the “self-proclaimed” Japan Tourism Ambassador, was born on January 11, 2011, International Thanksgiving Day. He is especially fond of visiting power spots and festivals, and is always trying to share the charms of Japan with the rest of the world.

His video introducing the attractions of Hyogo Prefecture has received over 1.01 million views. The Fukuoka version, released in June of this year, has received more than 1.51 million views and is attracting a great deal of attention from around the world.

For example, Amagasaki City in Hyogo Prefecture is located between the major tourist destinations of Osaka and Kobe, but tourists from overseas inevitably overlook it. Working in unison with the local government, we created this video in the hope of conveying Amagasaki’s charms to the world. We asked singer-songwriter Mizusaki Kyun from Kobe to supervise the music, and popular cosplay YouTube star Sakuraun AUN, who has more than 1.3 million registered users, also made a collaborative appearance,” said Kuroda.