HIKAWA, KUMAMOTO PREF. \u2013 Kumamon, the popular mascot of Kumamoto Prefecture, met with\u00a0children at an elementary school\u00a0on Sunday, after a powerful earthquake struck there late last month, giving them a brief moment of relief in the aftermath of the temblor.<\/p>\n
Children at Ryuhoku Saibu Elementary School in Hikawa, a town hit hard by\u00a0the July 28 quake, cheered when Kumamon emerged from the school\u2019s main entrance, with some saying, \u201cYes! It\u2019s Kumamon!\u201d<\/p>\n
Kumamon hugged and gave high fives to the children while handing out sweets and stickers. The mascot also waved to evacuees as the school has been serving as a shelter since the earthquake.<\/p>\n
Kumamon was \u201cso cute. I\u2019m happy to meet him,\u201d said Tenma Sassa, a 7-year-old first grader who often draws pictures of the mascot.<\/p>\n
Kakeru Nagata, a 7-year-old classmate of Sassa, said that he\u00a0got to\u00a0touch\u00a0Kumamon\u2019s tail. \u201cHis fluffy tail felt so nice,\u201d he said with satisfaction.<\/p>\n
Nagata\u2019s 48-year-old mother, Chihiro, said that their family is currently staying with relatives, as their house was destroyed by the earthquake.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad it helps my child get stress relief in his unfamiliar surroundings,\u201d she said of the interaction with Kumamon.<\/p>\n
The school visit marked the mascot\u2019s first activity after about three weeks of absence following the earthquake. To spread cheer, Kumamon will continue to visit evacuation centers and child care facilities in affected areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HIKAWA, KUMAMOTO PREF. \u2013 Kumamon, the popular mascot of Kumamoto Prefecture, met with\u00a0children at an elementary school\u00a0on Sunday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43797,2515,1217,8,48566,3903,40581,33],"class_list":["post-75555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-2026-kumamoto-earthquake","tag-children","tag-earthquakes","tag-japan","tag-kumamon","tag-kumamoto","tag-mascots","tag-nihon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}