Hello Kitty and Friends – RoseArt – approx. 125/500 pieces

Two of these characters seem happy, one definitely does not. It’s almost funny the look on the penguin’s face – he looks so disgusted!

I had NO IDEA the Hello Kitty world had so many characters, it’s amazing how detailed all their stories are and just how many of them exist. It’s been quite the deep dive into this world of Sanrio (the world in which Miss Hello Kitty lives).

Badtz-Maru is a male penguin with spiky hair. His birthday is April 1 (April Fool’s Day). He is one of the few Sanrio characters that is marketed to both males and females. In Japanese, “badtz” is a term for “X”, the cross signifying a wrong answer. “Maru” means circle or “O”, and signifies a correct answer. Thus, his name figuratively means “wrong-correct,” and is frequently represented by “XO”. Badtz-Maru has many different facial expressions and poses, but a common expression is of pulling one eye down and sticking out his tongue, a gesture equivalent to blowing a raspberry.

He was mostly black and white, with a bit of yellow – and not the easiest of the puzzles to assemble. But once you get in the groove of these puzzles it isn’t too bad.

Cinnamoroll was born on March 6 on a cloud far up in the sky, and is a white and chubby puppy with long ears that enable him to fly. He has blue eyes, pink cheeks and a plump and curly tail that resembles a cinnamon roll. You can barely see his tail in this image, but I’m taking their word for it that it looks like a cinnamon roll.

With barely any color and the length of this one it had me confused for a little bit, and the way the border went together meant it wasn’t easy either. Still, I really enjoyed all of these little guys.

Little Twin Stars is what these two are called; the boy is Kiki and his sister is Lala. They were born on December 24 on Omoiyari Star in the Dream-Star Cloud. To learn how to be the shiniest, best stars they could be they traveled a long way to Earth. Kiki loves star fishing and inventing things, and Lala loves cooking, drawing, and writing poems.

This was the first of the puzzles that I put together, and it was one of the easiest for me even though it was the largest. They’re adorable little things, I enjoyed it very much.

One more day to go, and don’t worry, Hello Kitty herself will be there!