The University of Hawaii System is tooting out the news about anthropologist Christine Yano’s revelation regarding Hello Kitty.

She told the Los Angeles Times this week that the Japanese pop figure is not really a cat.

According to UH, the “news” has gone viral (#HelloKittyisNotaCat) and drawn comments from the likes of Katy Perry and Josh Grobin.

Yano is a professor in the College of Social Sciences and author of a book about the cultural phenomenon titled Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek Across the Pacific.

UH Manoa says Yano was preparing a Hello Kitty retrospective at the Japanese American National Museum in L.A. when she was set straight by the Sanrio Corporation on Hello Kitty’s proper categorization.

“I was corrected — very firmly,” she told the L.A. Times. “Hello Kitty is not a cat. She’s a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She’s never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature.”

Yano is currently a visiting professor at Harvard and is spending time in L.A. preparing for the Oct. 11 launch of the retrospective, Exploring the Supercute World of Hello Kitty.

A UH media advisory adds, “Sanrio is offering clarification, saying: ‘Hello Kitty was done in the motif of a cat. It’s going too far to say that Hello Kitty is not a cat. Hello Kitty is a personification of a cat.’”

Christine Yano.

UH System News