The National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan (NAB) was in a bit of a pinch when the star of their commercials informing the public about the upcoming transition to digital TV in July of 2011, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi of SMAP, was arrested for public indecency after being found drunk and naked making a racket in a park last week. But, the creative minds there came up with a new mascot for the commercials and unveiled him yesterday — Chidejika ("Chidejika" for "terrestrial digital broadcasting transition," and "shika" for deer), a deer with antennae for antlers. For some reason, some people thought Chidejika was wearing some kind of school swimsuit or a leotard, but the NAB says that is absolutely not the case.
Of course, the never tiring artists of Japan that spend their days on 2ch and elsewhere didn't pass up the opportunity to turn the not quite so cute in kigurumi form Chidejika into a super cute moe character as you can see, with over 200 Chidejika illustrations on Pixiv as of now. Some artists decided to poke some fun at Kusanagi's streaking incident using Chidejika as well.
However, the NAB is none too happy about their new mascot being moefied, stating that they would not allow usage of Chidejika for such things and that they would seek to have such illustrations removed, using legal action if necessary. Instead of complaining, why not use the chance to promote a moe version of Chidejika? Everybody else is doing it — the city of Shimotsuma has Shimon-chan, there's moe rice, and even NHK has Haru-chan in its weather forecasts.
[via Itai News]
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