The kawaii bear character Rilakkuma is coming to Netflix. The streaming giant is set to premiere an original animated series starring the toy-bear in time for the character’s 15th anniversary next year.
Dwarf, the studio that produced “Komaneko: The Curious Cat” and created the character Domo, will be taking the production reins on the Rilakkuma project. The plan is to produce a show consisting of 13 episodes, each one 11 minutes long.
Rilakkuma made his debut in 2003 and was the brain-child of San-X, a Japanese character-creation company. The character’s backstory goes that Rilakkuma is a toy-bear who magically appears in the apartment of Kaoru, a typical office woman. The character is particularly popular among adult women, and the Rilakkuma market is estimated to be worth 250 billion yen, according to Variety.
