Sanrio’s recent flops include Spottie Dottie, a pink-frocked Dalmatian, and Pandapple, a baby panda. Even the moderately successful My Melody (a rabbit) and TuxedoSam (penguin) show no signs of achieving global Kitty-ness.

除了Hello Kitty，Sanrio公司的SpottieDottie（一只穿着粉色外套的斑点狗）和Pandapple（苹果熊，一只小熊猫）这两种产品的市场反响也非常不好。即便是相对来讲比较受欢迎的MyMelody（一只兔子）和TuxedoSam（一只小企鹅），也很难企及Hello Kitty曾经的轰动市场效应。

“We badly need something else,” said Yuko Yamaguchi, who has been Sanrio’s top Hello Kitty designer for most of its 36 years. “Characters take a long time to develop and introduce to different markets,” Ms. Yamaguchi said. “But Kitty has been so popular it’s overshadowed all our other efforts.”

“我们真的需要一些新东西了，”Sanrio的首席Hello Kitty设计师山口裕子（Yuko Yamaguchi）说，“一个卡通形象从面世到渐渐被不同市场接受要经历很长的过程，但是HelloKitty太红了，都影响到了我们其他卡通形象的推广了。”

One of Sanrio’s latest efforts is Jewelpet, a group of 33 sparkly eyed animals each with its own look. Diamond the black kitten is ladylike and decks out in pink bows. Sapphire is cool and prefers to wear blue. Sanrio’s thinking is that with so many to choose from, one has to stick.

Sanrio新近推出过一种叫宝石宠物（Jewelpet）的卡通形象，这一组动物一共有33个，眼睛闪亮，形象各异。比如叫“钻石”的是一只黑猫，戴粉色蝴蝶结，扮成女孩的形象。叫“蓝宝石”则很爱扮酷，喜欢穿蓝色衣服。Sanrio考虑有这么一组庞大的卡通形象，各类人总能在当中找到自己喜欢的。