Help is on the way. Ho ho ho.

The other day, while at the Summer Festival, I saw one of the booths for bottled tea using some interesting looking character as part of its promotion.  While I was unable to get one of the bottles (you had to buy something from one of the food booths and they would give you a stamp, but they were sold out), I did get the circular fan after asking nicely.

When I returned to the apartment, I soon found out that this animated character has a long history, appearing as far back as the late 1960s.  He is known as Warau Salesman (Laughing Salesman), and is featured (always smiling that diabolical smile) in manga comics (a set of 5, of which I was unable to find book 1 in the stores yesterday) and anime television shows.  It turns out that the stories are right up my alley (I did see two episodes on-line)- which can be said to be a Twilight Zone type scenario where the Laughing Salesman sees one character and his/her problems, helps them out but in the end, it turns out much like selling one's soul to the devil.

Just my type of fun.