Sanrio and Hello Kitty have become fairly synonymous with each other over the years. It's natural - Hello Kitty is Sanrio's flagship character and the face of the brand. However, this leads to fans wondering whether they're basically the same thing.

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It doesn't help when Sanrio itself refers to groups of characters as a collective 'Hello Kitty & Friends'. There is a distinction between the two, though, which we'll explain to help you understand the difference more and get to grips with the relationship between Hello Kitty and Sanrio. Here's everything you need to know.

What's The Difference Between Hello Kitty And Sanrio?

Sanrio is the company that owns the brand and character Hello Kitty. So, Hello Kitty falls under the Hello Kitty umbrella, rather than the two being one and the same.

However, Hello Kitty is Sanrio's most popular and famous character, so she is often used as the face of the company and is its mascot.

  • Sanrio

    • Founded on August 10, 1960 by Shintaro Tsuji
    • First original Sanrio character was Coro Chan
    • Creates and uses characters for various merchandise

  • Hello Kitty

    • Character created by Yuko Shimizu
    • Created in 1974
    • First appeared on a coin purse sold in Japan

Hello Kitty & Friends

Some merchandise collections refer to the popular Sanrio characters as 'Hello Kitty & Friends', which causes further confusion between the Sanrio and Hello Kitty character names.

There was also a TV show called The Adventures of Hello Kitty & Friends in the late 2000s, which has caused many people to think this is what the brand is called.

However, this tends to just refer to the main and most popular Sanrio characters (the ones you'll commonly see merchandise of) rather than the full 450+ roster. Hello Kitty & Friends typically refers to:

  • Hello Kitty
  • My Melody
  • Cinnamoroll
  • Kuromi
  • Keroppi
  • Pompompurin
  • Chococat
  • Pochacco
  • Badtz-Maru
  • Little Twin Stars
  • Gudetama
  • Retsuko
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