I'm Kirimichan, your faithful mealtime partner," she says in Sanrio marketing materials. "Be sure to grill me up nicely!" But Gudetama's malaise has since far eclipsed Kirimichan's eager complicity, particularly on social media, where the lazy egg has emerged as the subject of a popular Twitter account and a natural star of reaction GIFs. Gudetama and Aggretsuko represent an "evolution" of Sanrio's character creation, Marchi said, one that unspools online as well as in stores. Aggretsuko joined Twitter last month, and Sanrio recently struck a deal with Snapchat to showcase its characters on the app. On the internet, where characters become avatars for our personalities and moods, passively pleasing trinkets don't pack the same punch. If Hello Kitty represents happy-go-lucky submission to globalisation, Sanrio's newer characters respond to the market with soul-crushing resignation or seething rage.