Did you know that Hokkaido has a tremendous number of local characters? There are hundreds of them scattered all over Hokkaido. Among them, we would like to introduce "Tobenosuke" this time! If you have a good intuition, you already know that he is a character of Tobetsu Town.

The round shape and round eyes of Tobenosuke give him an adorable appearance, just like a local character. If you take a closer look at his appearance, you will see that he is wearing something like a kimono.

In fact, the foundation of Tobeto was laid by a man named Kuninao Date, a direct descendant of Masamune Date. In other words, Tobetsuke is inspired by the image of a samurai of the Date family. Indeed, if you look closely, you can see that he wears a crescent-shaped helmet, which is the symbol of the Dokuganryu.

Further, when we unravel his profile, we find that Tobesuke is a sparrow who admires the owl, the bird of Tobetsu Town, and that he himself has a white pattern around his eyes in imitation of the owl.

It is a surprise that he is a sparrow, but his efforts to resemble an owl are very heartwarming. Incidentally, the sparrow was the motif of Tobesuke because the crest of the Date family is a sparrow.

Tobenosuke is a boy, eternally five years old. His hobby is playing Chanbara, and his birthday is October 2 (Toubetsu). I was also allowed to take some precious back shots!

The name Tobenosuke was solicited from both inside and outside of the town, and the one that won the grand prize was chosen. The name "Tobenosuke" was chosen as the winner of the contest, and is said to be a shortened version of "Tobetsu," or "Tobe," and "Tobee," or "fly," which means "to make great strides.

If you are interested in meeting Tobenosuke! If you are interested in meeting Tobensuke, why don't you check out his official Instagram page and get information about his activities there?

If you check it out, you may become more and more captivated by Tobesuke's cute pictures.