Haruchan (Haru=Spring, chan=casual form of san, honorific title) is a popular personified Spring character on public broadcast TV NHK’s prime time weather news program. She was made by anthropomorphizing high pressure system in Spring weather. Here is a sample of the weather report program,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu6f4CDix7U
On April 4, this virtual character girl began Twitter [J] @nhk_haruchan, and got over 20,000 followers within 24 hours.
Her first tweet was “Long time no see!”. Then she announced that her web page [J] has been reneded.
NHK featured Haruchan on their other advertising program [J],
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVlaBZTcYlw
As Haruchan only shows up around Spring, there are of course many other characters on the NHK news. For Autumn, there are Akichan(Aki=autumn),
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTmoGEls684
There are also Natsushogun(“Shogun Summer/Heat”) and Fuyushogun(“Shogun Winter”).
NHK’s another popular Twitter account @NHK_PR by NHK Public Relation section, who has 329,000 followers and is beloved by net users by its exceptionally casual and informal styled tweets, said by seeing Haruchan’s pampered, “I should have beaten her… Haruchan”.
See Also:
Japanese Web Community As Person
Kawaii Security – Over 30 Computer Virus Personified In Japanese Security Book
