(Central News Agency, Tokyo, 4th, comprehensive foreign news reports) JR East will announce the mascot candidate list for the transportation IC card Suica (Water Melon Card) in the near future, officially replacing the beloved Suica penguin since 2001. JR East will hold online voting for the three candidate characters and announce the results in November.
"Nihon Keizai Shimbun" reported that JR East announced in November 2025 that Suica Penguin will "officially graduate" at the end of 2026. In February this year, JR East Japan established a successor mascot selection committee, chaired by writer Kaoru Koyama, and members also include model Saya Ichikawa, artist Tomoe Shinohara and others.
About 10 character drafts were originally proposed, but the selection committee recently reduced them to 3 candidates. JR East will not participate in the selection process. The selection committee is expected to inform JR East of the candidate list, which will then be announced by JR East in the near future.
JR East is expected to hold an online voting for general consumers in September. The one with the most votes will become the new mascot. Detailed information such as voting methods will also be announced at that time.
The results of the vote will be announced on November 18, the day Suica started offering its services in 2001. In March 2027, the "handover ceremony" of the mascot handover will be held.
JR East changed the Suica mascot to symbolize the functional reform of Suica. JR East plans to introduce the QR code payment tool teppay in the fall, and plans to launch a region-limited function called "Local Suica" in the spring of 2027. In the future, Suica will no longer only be used for entering and exiting station gates and small payments, but its functional scope will be greatly expanded.
However, since its debut in 2001, Suica Penguin has been very popular among users of JR East and beyond. This character was designed by picture book writer Chiharu Sakazaki and has a large number of fans with his cute and cute appearance.
Suica penguins have also appeared in TV commercials and various peripheral products, contributing greatly to increasing Suica's popularity. After JR East announced that Penguin had "graduated", there were a lot of reluctances on social media and other platforms, and some even called for the withdrawal of the graduation decision.
Therefore, JR East launched an event called Penguin Years to express its gratitude to fans and Suica Penguins. In November, the Yamanote Line will launch a Suica painted train; a Suica fan event will also be held at Tokyo Ueno Station from October 30 to November 4, and special peripheral products will be sold.
The Suica penguin bronze statue located near JR Shinjuku Station is also attracting attention as to its future direction. There are currently plans to consider moving the bronze statue to a railway museum in Saitama City operated by JR East and other units.
The design of the subsequent mascot has not yet been announced, but JR East conducted a questionnaire survey in March this year, and employees of the group's companies were also among the survey targets. A total of 10,000 people responded to the questionnaire, and 40% of them said "I hope it is an animal." In addition, some people hope to be "fictional creatures" or "railroad, mechanical-style robots."
JR East said it "will not make a decision based on this result," but the selection committee may use the questionnaire results as a reference.
