Japan is cute. Japanese people love all things that are cute. In Japan, a cute character is necessary to sell everything from candy to banking services.

This has not gone lost on Japanese police forces. Every force in the country has its own hyper-cute cartoon character.


(click to enlarge)

The best known character is Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's Pipo-kun.



Pipo-kun is stamped on every police station (koban) in Tokyo.



He also makes regular appearances in police posters. This one is asking people to report crime to Japan's emergency number (110).





In Japan, police crime posters are either hyper-cute or super-intimidating.



At last count there were 289,800 police in Japan. Most of these work for the 47 prefectures of Japan (prefectural police forces). There are also various national police organizations.







There are 13,500 female police officers working in Japan.

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