{"id":12776,"date":"2026-09-27T16:22:40","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T16:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/im-a-collector.com\/?p=12776"},"modified":"2026-09-27T16:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T16:49:10","slug":"moomins-japan-popularity-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/im-a-collector.com\/en\/memory-legacy\/moomins-japan-popularity-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are the Moomins so popular in Japan?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Moomins are Finnish. Created by Tove Jansson, they remain deeply associated with Finland today. The first books were translated in the 1960s, a Moomin anime reached television in 1969, and a new Japanese series began airing in 1990. In the meantime, Moomintroll, Snufkin and Little My found their way onto tableware, stationery, clothing and household goods, and even into a park built near Tokyo. By 2008, Japan already accounted for around 50% of global Moomin merchandise sales, and 85% of those products still used the look of the 1990 anime. So why are the Moomins so popular in Japan? That is the question I found myself asking this year while visiting the Moomin Museum in Tampere.<\/p>\n\n

Tove Jansson did not always appreciate what Japan was doing with her characters. She hated some of the liberties taken by the first Japanese adaptation and even prevented it from being distributed abroad. Twenty years later, she agreed to work with a Japanese team again on a new series. It would later air in Finland, where children in turn grew up with a version of the Moomins that had been created in Japan. Some of its visual choices would eventually make their way back to the characters\u2019 country of origin and become part of the series\u2019 visual standard.<\/p>\n\n

We often talk about how France transformed the Japanese anime that reached us in the 1980s and 1990s. Names were changed, theme songs rewritten and dubbing sometimes took considerable liberties. The Moomins offer a chance to look at Japan from the opposite position: as the country receiving a foreign work and having to decide how far it can adapt it for its own audience.<\/p>\n\n

I began this research with the word \u201cappropriation\u201d in mind. The story of 1969 almost seemed to support that reading. What came afterwards gradually forced me to abandon it.<\/p>\n\n

The Moomins were already in Japan before their first anime<\/h2>\n\n

Tove Jansson published her first Moomin book in Finland in 1945. The characters reached Japan less than twenty years later.<\/p>\n\n

Kodansha published the first Japanese edition in 1964 with Moominland Midwinter, as part of a collection of foreign literature for young readers. Finn Family Moomintroll followed under the title Tanoshii M\u016bmin Ikka. Japanese readers therefore first encountered the characters through Tove Jansson\u2019s original illustrations.<\/p>\n\n

At first, I assumed their history in Japan began with television. These early editions shift that timeline slightly. Japanese readers had already begun discovering the Moomins as Jansson drew them before Japan ever brought them to life on screen.<\/p>\n\n

The anime broadcast by Fuji Television from October 1969 naturally reached a much wider audience. The series was successful enough for Snufkin to receive letters from viewers. Tove Jansson was even invited to Japan, travelling there in 1971 with her partner, the artist Tuulikki Pietil\u00e4.<\/p>\n\n

In just a few years, a literary work from Finland had gained a real presence in Japanese popular culture. Yet the Moomin Jansson discovered on television had already moved a long way from the one she had created.<\/p>\n\n

\"1964
1964 Japanese edition of Moominvalley in Midwinter, translated by Shizuka Yamamuro and illustrated by Tatsuo Ikeda. Published by Kodansha, this edition marked the Moomins\u2019 first appearance in Japan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

In 1969, Japan created a Moomin for Japanese television<\/h2>\n\n

The 1969 series was produced at a time when Japanese animation was adapting large numbers of foreign works. Several people who would later become major figures in the industry worked on the project, including Yasuo \u014ctsuka and a still-young Hayao Miyazaki.<\/p>\n\n

And the production teams of the time clearly took considerable liberties.<\/p>\n\n

The changes began with the names: Snorkmaiden, for example, became Non-Non. Several personalities were altered and situations that never existed in Jansson\u2019s stories were invented. Official Moomin sources mention, among other things, a Moominpappa capable of hitting his son, a war in the valley and changes to the characters\u2019 colours. Tove Jansson also criticised the series for moving away from the relationships she had built between them, losing some of the empathy and sensitivity she had placed at the heart of her stories.<\/p>\n\n

Changing Moominpappa or introducing more violence was not simply a matter of adjusting a few details to make them more effective or readable on television. Jansson had built her world around a particular way of living together. Her characters can argue, leave, feel afraid or want to be alone. Physical violence never held the place that this adaptation sometimes gave it.<\/p>\n\n

There was another issue: production had begun without any genuine prior agreement from the author. When Jansson travelled to Japan in 1971, she met Fuji Television and made her objections clear. Despite her efforts, she was unable to stop the series from airing in Japan, but she did prevent its distribution abroad. Both the 1969 adaptation and the 1972 series remain in an unusual position today, as the rights holders no longer authorise their normal exploitation.<\/p>\n\n

For all the complications surrounding the rights, one fact remains: some Japanese children did grow up with the Moomins.<\/p>\n\n

I inevitably think of the anime we discovered in France in versions that could be very different from the originals. Thirty years later, a French voice, a changed name or a theme song can remain inseparable from our memory of a series. The Japanese children writing to Snufkin in the early 1970s likewise knew the character in the form they had been given.<\/p>\n\n

Tove Jansson herself would eventually acknowledge that children could love the series even if it did not correspond to the Moomins she had created.<\/p>\n\n

Miyazaki\u2019s \u201csecret\u201d work on Moomin (1969)<\/strong>Brought in unofficially and left uncredited on episodes 21, 23 and 24 to help his mentor Yasuo \u014ctsuka, Hayao Miyazaki worked on the series as a key animator. His visual contributions are unmistakable, bringing an unusual fascination with machinery into the otherwise peaceful valley. He animated the strikingly realistic tank and military helicopter in episode 21, as well as the complex movements of the aircraft and submarine in episode 23.Completely at odds with the books, these tanks and firearms infuriated original author Tove Jansson, who was appalled by this violent, militarised version of her world. Decades later, Miyazaki still joked about it in an interview: \u201cI don\u2019t remember everything, but I do remember putting in a tank that went \u2018kata-kata-kata\u2019!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

\"Scenes
Scenes from episodes 21 and 23 of Moomin, on which Hayao Miyazaki worked as an uncredited key animator alongside his mentor Yasuo \u014ctsuka.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

In 1990, Tove Jansson agreed to a new Japanese adaptation<\/h2>\n\n

On 12 April 1990, TV Tokyo began broadcasting Tanoshii M\u016bmin Ikka, known in France as Les Moomins. This time, Tove Jansson and her brother Lars were genuinely involved in the project.<\/p>\n\n

Character designer Yasuhiro Nakura was selected with their involvement, and the designs proposed by the Japanese team were submitted to the Janssons. The framework still left the animators some freedom. Snork, for example, was given glasses and a fringe that did not appear in that form in the original drawings. These choices were approved.<\/p>\n\n

The series would total 104 episodes including Tanoshii M\u016bmin Ikka B\u014dken Nikki. Sumio Shiratori composed around 260 pieces of music for the production. The official Japanese history notes that it was broadcast in dozens of countries, and for much of the international audience this adaptation would become the best-known animated representation of the Moomins.<\/p>\n\n

Finland began broadcasting it in 1991.<\/p>\n\n

The series arrived in Finland with its Japanese drawing style, direction and some of the choices made by the TV Tokyo teams. It was dubbed into Finnish and Swedish. The songs and some of the music were adapted again. Finnish children were therefore introduced to characters created in their own country through a series produced in Japan.<\/p>\n\n

Moominworld opened in Naantali in 1993. The park adopted some of the representations and settings associated with the 1990s anime.<\/p>\n\n

Some Japanese choices were thus given physical form in Finland.<\/p>\n\n

Years later, while working on Moominvalley, Finnish producer Marika Makaroff explained that her own generation had grown up with the Japanese series. For some Finns, this animated version is what immediately comes to mind when they think of the Moomins.<\/p>\n\n

A Finnish work was transformed in Japan, then that transformation returned to its country of origin and helped shape how a new generation of Finns discovered it.<\/p>\n\n

The dialogue between Finland and Japan had already moved far beyond the idea of simple borrowing.<\/p>\n\n

\"Visual
Visual from the opening theme Yume no Sekai e (\u201cTo the World of Dreams\u201d), performed by Emiko Shiratori and used for episodes 1 to 52.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Why have the Moomins remained popular in Japan across generations?<\/h2>\n\n

The first anime dates from 1969. The second major adaptation began in 1990. Moominvalley Park opened in 2019. The Moomins\u2019 presence in Japan now stretches across more than sixty years.<\/p>\n\n

Someone who watched Fuji Television in the late 1960s grew up with an adaptation that is now almost inaccessible. Someone born twenty years later may be attached to the 1990 series. A much younger audience may know both Jansson\u2019s original drawings and the more modern designs used on products sold today.<\/p>\n\n

Hyung-Gu Lynn, a professor at the University of British Columbia, makes precisely this point in his work on the Moomins in Japan. Their popularity cannot be explained simply by their kawaii appearance. The characters have moved between novels, animation and objects for long enough that several generations have been able to build very different relationships with them.<\/p>\n\n

An entire country obviously does not become attached to a work for one single reason. The kawaii aspect very likely played an important role in this success: Moomintroll is round and instantly recognisable, while Little My and Snufkin have silhouettes perfectly suited to merchandise.<\/p>\n\n

But the Moomins also survived their transformation into a brightly coloured animated series that was quite far removed from Tove Jansson\u2019s much more personal work.<\/p>\n\n

Snufkin, Little My and everyone who lives life in their own way<\/h2>\n\n

Tove Jansson\u2019s books sometimes have the same gentleness found in the merchandise. They can also be far stranger or more melancholy.<\/p>\n\n

    \n
  • Snufkin regularly sets off on his own. He loves those close to him without feeling the need to remain with them all the time,<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Little My is not particularly interested in being pleasant, still less in living up to what others expect of her,<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Moominpappa loves his family while still dreaming of adventure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n

    Several characters can therefore spend time together without needing to share the same habits.<\/p>\n\n

    But this world is also full of disasters:<\/p>\n\n

      \n
    • a comet threatens to destroy the world<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • a flood sweeps through the valley<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Moomintroll wakes in the middle of winter while his entire family is hibernating and discovers a world he does not know at all<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n

      Before returning to the books for this article, I had largely retained the gentle image of the Moomins. Some passages reminded me why the work can still speak to adults. Tove Jansson never wrote or described a world that was simply comfortable and pleasant.<\/p>\n\n

      Anthropologist Hideko Mitsui links part of the Moomins\u2019 success in Japan to the changes the country underwent from the 1990s onwards. After several decades of very strong economic growth, Jansson\u2019s world could offer some readers a different vision of everyday life, with more room for nature, human relationships or simply the possibility of not living exactly like everyone else.<\/p>\n\n

      I do not think this can explain their popularity as a whole. It does, however, help explain why some characters could continue to appeal long after childhood.<\/p>\n\n

      Snufkin seems particularly representative of that to me. He travels with very few possessions, regularly rejects rules he considers pointless and has no desire to settle permanently anywhere. His presence on an astonishing amount of merchandise creates a curious contradiction with his personality. There is something amusing about one of the characters least attached to possessions becoming a motif people buy to put on mugs, bags and notebooks.<\/p>\n\n

      \"Snufkin
      Original drawing by Tove Jansson depicting Snufkin and Moomintroll on a bridge in the Moomin universe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

      In 2008, 85% of Moomin products still used the anime design<\/h2>\n\n

      Objects play a much larger role in this story than I initially imagined.<\/p>\n\n

      In 2008, around 85% of Moomin products still used the aesthetic of the 1990 series. Japan then accounted for nearly 50% of the licence\u2019s global sales.<\/p>\n\n

      Those figures give a fairly precise sense of how influential the anime had become within the Moomin world.<\/p>\n\n

      Almost twenty years after its launch, its visual representation was still shaping how a large part of the public encountered the characters in shops.<\/p>\n\n

      And by then, the Moomins were already everywhere.<\/p>\n\n

      In 2008, for example, the Mitsukoshi department store in Ginza held a Moomin Premium Collection. Around the same time, NTT DoCoMo released a P705i mobile phone featuring the characters. Hattifatteners were even used to indicate signal strength, an idea I simply find brilliant.<\/p>\n\n

      I particularly like this example because it feels so specific to its time. A Japanese phone from 2008, with Moomin emoticons and little Hattifatteners in the interface, says more about how deeply the licence had taken root than a simple list of figures ever could.<\/p>\n\n

      Today, official Japanese partners still sell a huge range of products. They extend from plush toys and stationery to household linen, jewellery, glasses, cosmetics, kitchen accessories and gardening products.<\/p>\n\n

      And it is in these everyday objects that I most clearly find what interested me at the beginning of this article.<\/p>\n\n

      A collectible is normally chosen because someone already has a relationship with the work. A mug can work very differently. It may have been given to someone who simply likes the design. It can then remain in a kitchen for ten years and be used every morning even if its owner knows nothing about Tove Jansson, or even Finland.<\/p>\n\n

      Through that repeated presence, the work gradually becomes part of habits that do not necessarily require any knowledge of where it came from.<\/p>\n\n

      \"Window
      Window display of Moomin Shop Osaka, which opened in September 2023 on the eighth floor of Lucua Osaka, directly connected to JR Osaka Station.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

      The rights holders decide to put Tove Jansson back at the centre<\/h2>\n\n

      The overwhelming presence of the anime\u2019s visual style eventually became a concern for Moomin Characters.<\/p>\n\n

      Sophia Jansson, Tove\u2019s niece and one of the people involved in managing her legacy, became concerned that the adaptations and products were gradually moving further away from the original work.<\/p>\n\n

      The 2008 figure shows the gap clearly: 85% of products were still using the animated version even though Tove Jansson\u2019s drawings are an essential part of what makes her work recognisable.<\/p>\n\n

      Moomin Characters therefore decided to change direction. The original illustrations regained an important place in licensing, and some commercial relationships in Japan were reorganised.<\/p>\n\n

      It was a genuinely risky move. Part of the Japanese public had known the characters through the 1990 anime for nearly twenty years. Jansson\u2019s drawings were less familiar, rougher and sometimes considerably darker.<\/p>\n\n

      Even so, the Japanese market did not collapse. Roleff Kr\u00e5kstr\u00f6m, then head of Moomin Characters, said that Japan still accounted for nearly 50% of global sales in 2014. Another interview puts the country\u2019s contribution at around 30 to 40% of the company\u2019s revenue in a typical year.<\/p>\n\n

      Japanese consumers therefore continued to buy Moomin products even as Tove Jansson\u2019s original drawings regained a more prominent place in the licences.<\/p>\n\n

      \n
      \n
      \n
      \"Moomintroll
      Colourful poster showing Moomintroll preparing a mixture in a cauldron, displayed at the Moomin Museum in Tampere. \u00a9 imacollector\u00ae<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      \"Original
      The Moominhouse built over three years by Tove Jansson, Tuulikki Pietil\u00e4 and Pentti Eistola, now displayed at the Moomin Museum in Tampere. First exhibited in Bratislava in 1979, it was later shown in several Nordic countries. Photograph \u00a9 imacollector\u00ae.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

      The Moomins have also shaped how Japan sees Finland<\/h2>\n\n

      Interestingly, over the decades the characters have become increasingly associated with their country of origin.<\/p>\n\n

      Hideko Mitsui has studied how the Moomins contribute to a particular image of Finland in Japan.<\/p>\n\n

      Having recently visited Finland myself, I encountered several things that easily feed that image: the importance of nature, the ever-present lakes and the way living spaces are designed to open onto the outdoors. I also discovered a country far more complex than the gentle, quiet Finland it is easy to imagine.<\/p>\n\n

      The Finland presented through the Moomins in Japan inevitably selects certain aspects of the country. Forests, lakes, design and the relationship with nature occupy a prominent place. They are also among the things Japanese audiences may be looking for when they become interested in Finland through the Moomins.<\/p>\n\n

      The Mets\u00e4 complex in Hann\u014d condenses almost this entire history into a single place.<\/p>\n\n

      Mets\u00e4 Village opened in 2018, followed by Moominvalley Park the next year. The word mets\u00e4 means \u201cforest\u201d in Finnish. Visitors can see the blue Moominhouse and several settings inspired by the work, then discover nearby products and experiences presented as Nordic.<\/p>\n\n

      In July 2026, Mets\u00e4 announced that it had welcomed more than six million visitors since opening. That figure covers Mets\u00e4 Village and Moominvalley Park together, not the Moomin park alone.<\/p>\n\n

      A work that first reached Japanese bookshops in 1964 therefore now has a physical place around forty kilometres from Tokyo where visitors can experience both its history and its Finnish origins.<\/p>\n\n

      \"Illustration
      Illustration of the Mets\u00e4 Hanno project, which brings together Mets\u00e4 Village and Moominvalley Park in a natural setting in Hanno, Japan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

      Did Japan really appropriate the Moomins?<\/h2>\n\n

      \u201cAppropriation\u201d is probably not the best term for this story as a whole, even if the 1969 series fits some of the criticisms associated with appropriation relatively well. This was a foreign work transformed without genuine agreement from its creator. Tove Jansson believed several changes betrayed what she was trying to do and even blocked the resulting series from international distribution.<\/p>\n\n

      In 1990, Tove and Lars Jansson took part in the creative process and even approved some Japanese inventions. The series later returned to Finland and helped shape how an entire generation discovered the characters. Elements of that representation would themselves be adopted there.<\/p>\n\n

      Later, the rights holders felt the Moomin world had once again moved too far from Tove Jansson\u2019s work and reorganised the licence. The Japanese public nevertheless continued to follow the characters.<\/p>\n\n

      As I said, I began this article with the word \u201cappropriation\u201d in mind. By the end of my research, I preferred to call it cultural adoption.<\/p>\n\n

      The Moomins therefore never stopped being Finnish. Today, their origins are presented more clearly in Japan than ever before.<\/p>\n\n

      Japan has nevertheless had more than sixty years to build its own relationship with them, which is far from insignificant.<\/p>\n\n

      When a foreign work accompanies several generations<\/h2>\n\n

      A Japanese child who watched M\u016bmin in 1969 may be over sixty as I write this. Their children may have grown up with the 1990 series, while their grandchildren can discover Tove Jansson in a bookshop, buy an Arabia mug or visit Moominvalley Park in Hann\u014d.<\/p>\n\n

      Three generations can therefore know the same character without having known the same reference work.<\/p>\n\n

      Finland itself is in a fairly similar position, as adults who grew up in the 1990s associate some of their childhood memories with the Japanese anime.<\/p>\n\n

      Merchandise extends that longevity even further.<\/p>\n\n

      The Moomins will always remain Tove Jansson\u2019s work. Japan has simply had enough time to add its own history around this world and its characters.<\/p>\n\n

      A Japanese child who watched M\u016bmin in 1969 may be a grandparent today. Their grandchildren may not know the series, but they know the Moomins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The Moomins are Finnish, but Japan has had a relationship with them for more than sixty years. A controversial anime in 1969, a new adaptation supervised by Tove Jansson in 1990, merchandise and a park near Tokyo: by repeatedly reshaping this foreign work, Japan eventually built its own history around it. A story that, in the end, looks less like appropriation than cultural adoption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[247],"series":[],"personnage":[],"type_objet":[],"univers":[],"artiste":[],"porteur_de_licence":[],"editeur_fabricant":[],"class_list":["post-12776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-memory-legacy","tag-analysis"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy are the Moomins so popular in Japan? | imacollector\u00ae<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why are the Moomins so popular in Japan? 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