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Have you ever walked by, say, a fried chicken restaurant that had a chicken mascot and been slightly disturbed by the implications of a food-themed character? If you eat the chicken there, aren’t you essentially killing the mascot? And why on earth is he so happy about it?

Japan is full of stuff like this. Pigs selling tonkatsu, chickens shucking poultry, dumplings who dream of being eaten by grandma. And now, Sanrio – famous for giving birth to everybody’s favorite mouthless kitty – is jumping on the food character bandwagon with this odd mascot with an edible head made out of grilled fish.

Kirimi-chan, presumably named such on the assumption you won’t devour something you know on a first name basis, is the lead character of Sanrio’s new line of bizarre food-slice-people. There are several other fish variations, as well as Rosu-chan – with a slice of ham for a head – and Kamaboko-chan, whose head is made out of molded fish paste.

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The Japanese Internet is absolutely – ahem – eating up the new characters, who actually won first place in a Sanrio contest to pick the cutest of a whopping 20 different edible mascots:

“Kirimi-chan is so cute!”

“I love (to eat) Buri-kun!”

“Kirimi-chan looks delicious.”

“I love Kirimi-chan. I want her.”

Okay, so those comments are… actually a little creepy. But Kirimi-chan has them all beat with possibly the creepiest of one-liners ever uttered by an animated character:

▼ “Please grill me thoroughly.” *horf*

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Source: Entabe
Inset photo: Togetter