Echika Omotesando Christmas Bunnies

In Japan, everything has a cute character mascot – even mayonnaise.

The shopping complex under Omotesando Station is called “Echika” – and Echika’s cute character is a bunny rabbit looking creature with a handbag. Is Echika really a bunny? Is Hello Kitty a cat? Maybe not, but it looks something like one, so that’s what we’ll call it.

If you read the official website, it seems that Echika the shopping mascot (called Echika-chan) was somehow inspired by Alice in Wonderland. It has something to do with Alice falling down the rabbit hole and Omotesando Station being underground, though we’re not sure the about the full connection (Alice never could pass up a deal on brand name handbags!?!)

Meet Echika-chan – the cute Japanese shopping character that might be a rabbit:

The underground Echika mall consists of a food court and various fashion shops, a nail place, some accessory shops, etc.

For Christmas 2008, Echika is launching a book about Echika-chan. That is, the mall named Echika is launching a book about the character named Echika. To celebrate, they have a huge Japanese Christmas Cake in the hallway in the middle of the shops. The cake is covered in cute little stuffed Echika dolls.

Echika Christmas Cake – Be careful, it bites back:

There was also a big sign that said they are having some sort of drawing or prize give away or something Dec. 21st and 25th. Not sure exactly what they are giving away, but it looked like maybe the Echika book.

A book about Echika-chan:

We here at Tokyo Fashion don’t really care about the illustrated book, but we’d love to have one of those stuffed shopping bunny characters. You can never have too many cute Japanese characters on your desk.

If you’re interested in checking out the Echika underground shopping mall, or if you have never seen a Christmas cake covered in kawaii bunnies, just head for Omotesando Station and take the stairs down. Echika-chan will show you the way…