Gudetama

Gudetama (ぐでたま, Gudetama) is a Sanrio character who is an egg.

The name Gudetama is formed from two parts: The first is the ideophone “gudegude” (Japanese:ぐでぐで) which is used to evoke the impression of something lazy and lacking energy. The second part is from the Japanese word “tamago” (Japanese: たまご) which means egg. So, the name "Gudetama" translates from Japanese to English as "lazy egg."

Gudetama is normally a yolk of a raw egg with a butt crack and a yellow color similar to honey and ripe corn kernels. It has a head with no neck and a body with limbs, but no fingers and toes. Its eyes are drawn like two black beans, appearing lazy. It also has a mouth with no obvious teeth. Gudetama is genderless because it is an unfertilized egg and is sometimes depicted laying on an egg white as a bed while using bacon as a blanket. Additionally, there are many other depictions of Gudetama corresponding to the various ways of cooking eggs.

Background[]

Gudetama was created by 26-year-old Sanrio designer AMY, real name Nagashima Emi (Japanese: 永嶋瑛美), who graduated from Joshibi University of Art and Design in 2012. She usually creates female characters since she started learning how to paint, because she wants to express the beauty of women. The creation of Gudetama was inspired by an egg she was preparing for dinner after a long day at work. "The yolk looked cute...because of its droopy demeanor".

She felt that the yolk looked quite like today's young people - feeling tired about life. Therefore, she designed an egg character and build its personality to attract millennials in this generation. In 2013, Gudetama took part in a food-based competition held by Sanrio called the Food Character Election (食べキャラ総選挙) to inspire its designers and test out new characters. Gudetama came in second, with the winner of the competition being a cheerful salmon fillet named Kirimichan. Even though Gudetama was less popular than Kirimichan in the beginning, it gained more fans and a higher market value than the cute salmon character.

Seibu Railway Collaboration[]

To celebrate Gudetama's 5th anniversary, in 2018 Seibu Railway collaborated with Gudetama and designed a Gudetama-themed train. This train ran along Shinjuku Line and the Haijima Line from mid-August to November. It was then on the Seibu Ikebukuro Line until the 27th of December that year. Externally, the train was given a yellow coat of paint with illustrations of Gudetama, and a Gudetama face appeared on the front and back. Large Gudetama decorate the inside as dividers between seating and doors.

Ranking in the Sanrio Character Ranking[]

In 2023 country/region statistics, Gudetama was in the top ten in 12 of the 14 countries, most notably ranking 1st in Germany.^[1]

2014: 7th place (4th place in Group E)
2015: 4th place
2016: 4th place
2017: 5th place
2018: 8th place (1st in South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States; 2nd in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom; 3rd in Brazil, Italy, Germany, and the United Arab Emirates)
2019: 9th place
2020: 12th place (2nd in the United Kingdom)
2021: 16th place (3rd in the United States and Australia)
2022: 15th place (2nd in Australia, 3rd in Germany and Singapore)
2023: 13th place (1st in Germany; 3rd in Australia and Spain; 4th in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Singapore; 6th in Taiwan and Italy; 7th in France; 8th in Thailand; 9th in China and Brazil)
2024: 16th place (2nd in Germany and Australia; 6th in Taiwan; 8th in Italy; 9th in Singapore; 10th in the United States, Brazil, and the United Kingdom)
2025: 16th place (8th in the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, and Spain; 9th in Taiwan; 10th in Italy and France)

Trivia[]

Gudetama is normally referred to with it/its pronouns in official sources. However, he/him pronouns are used for Gudetama on Hello Kitty's YouTube channel.

In the Netflix series Gudetama: An Eggcellent Adventure, it hatched from a blue egg laid by Hana the hen.

Gudetama has played Minecraft, Fall Guys, and Maimaimaigoen on its YouTube channel.