Lerch-san: The Niigata Mascot

Recently, BigFamJapan asked about our favorite mascots in the Q&A section here on City-Cost. I mentioned that I quite liked Funyassi and Kumamon, since they were all the rage when I first moved here and I guess I found them the most endearing/recognizable at the time!

However, I also mentioned that our local mascot for Niigata Prefecture is a bit of a goofy one, and while going through pictures on my hard drive this week I found an old picture I took of some prefectural merch so you can see what I'm talking about!

The fellow above is "Lerch-san", and he's inspired by Theodor von Lerch, the person who introduced skiing to Japan right here in Niigata (the Joetsu area!) back in 1911. You can check out his Wikipedia page here, but I don't know that they did the best job of making a decent cartoony replica of him. 

You'll often see a costumed-up Lerch-san at different large-scale events around the prefecture, but I don't know that I would personally be going out of my way to purchase any Lerch-Merch. He's not quite as kawaii as some of the other prefectural mascots out there!