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

And now we’ve come to the final day of the Hello Kitty puzzles; it’s two friends, and Miss Hello Kitty herself! I enjoyed putting these puzzles together, but if you ask me there’s so much white that they all seemed harder to assemble than they look.

The quality was pretty good actually, much better than the last set of these puzzles I assembled – the Peanuts gang. No missing pieces, no pieces still attached to each other by the backing paper, and a relatively good fit. The finish is quite shiny, but even under artificial lighting it wasn’t too difficult to work with.

It was difficult to get pictures though, as the backing is quite slippery. Because my puzzle board is covered with fabric most puzzles grip the fabric and stay put when I stand the board against the wall to get good pictures with no glare from the artificial lighting. With the backing on these little puzzles, each one would just slide right down the board when I attempted to photograph them. That’s why quite a few of the images are at an angle, I couldn’t stand the board up at all.

And now, the final three characters…

Pochacco is a white dog with floppy black ears and a sporty, playful personality. He loves soccer, basketball, and skateboarding. Although he walks upright, Pochacco is clumsy and trips over himself quite a bit; this usually results in a head injury with an accumulation of bandages. He was born on February 29 (Leap Day) and lives in Airy Town.

Other than his red shirt, it was all black and white and not simple to assemble (even though it may look easy). Still, he’s a cute little guy, isn’t he?

Kuromi, whose name translates to “black beauty” in English, is a rabbit with a black jester’s hat with a pink skull; the skull’s facial expression apparently changes to match Kuromi’s mood. Her birthday is Halloween (October 31), which is fitting seeing that she also has a devil’s tail. She enjoys cooking and writing in her diary, and her favorite colors are black and hot pink.

This one wasn’t as difficult as the others to assemble, and it went together pretty quickly. With the placement of her eyelashes and that little smile, she looks as if she’s up to something, doesn’t she?

And last but certainly not least is Hello Kitty herself! She is a white Japanese Bobtail Cat who was born on November 1. Surprisingly she dislikes catnip, but she does enjoy baking cookies and collecting cute things, and she loves her Mama’s apple pie. (The backstory on her even tells us her blood type, if you can believe it – just….wow).

The clothes and hairbow made this one a little easier to assemble, but she’s got a very large, very white head! Good thing these puzzles were only a few pieces each, any larger and they wouldn’t have been much fun at all.

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Overall this set of puzzles was enjoyable to assemble, but much more difficult than they look; the predominance of white with black lines made for a bit of a challenge even with only a few pieces per puzzle. Still, they are all adorable and were fun to assemble.

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!