For April release, Iwako has three new Japanese animal erasers from three continents. Kangaroo, polar bear and rhinoceros Japanese erasers. As always, the cutness quotient is over the top. Iwako has managed to even make the rhino Japanese erasers cuddly.

The April release will have the Iwako animal erasers in the colors below. Perhaps later this year we will see the kangaroo, polar bear and rhino erasers each come in six colors.

These skateboard figures from Toy Boarders come in eight poses. From the top row in the left, the guys are doing the following stances: Pushing, Cruising 1, Smith and Manual. Front row, from the left: Ollie, Cruising 2, Nose Grab and Tail Grab.

Figures are about 2 inches tall and are packed 24 pieces in a poly bag.

Come March, we will see from Iwako, Series Two Duck Japanese erasers. In this second series of duck Japanese erasers, green and orange are the two new colors that were not in the series One Duck Japanese erasers.

The blue, yellow, purple and pink are different shades of their cousins in the Series One Ducks.

We do not know how Iwako picks the colors of their Japanese erasers other than that they are pleasing to the eye. But we have to wonder why, with an infinite array of colors, why they would pick colors that are only couple of shades removed from the previous series.

From Sanrio, comes die cut scented Hello Kitty face erasers in a clam shell case. On the cuteness scale, this rates about level 99. We could use superlatives like adorable and sweet and we would not be exaggerating. This is one of the better eraser sets we have seen from Sanrio in quite a while.

We were trying to figure out what each Hello Kitty eraser smelled like and we were not have much success. We did smell rose, grape and maybe lemon or orange, but we got no further than that.

We have on sausalitoferry.com, a larger size die cut scented Hello Kitty face erasers that are labeled to what scent each eraser is, but this set is not labeled for scent.

Erasers are 3/4 inch across.

This March, we will see some new colors of the bird Japanese erasers mixed in with some current colors.

The bird Japanese eraser that will continue appear to be the pink, yellow and lavender. Discontinued colors are fuschia and turquoise. The new colors are green and orange.

The photo we are showing is from Iwako Japan. The shades of the pink, yellow and lavender bird Japanese erasers may be different than their current versions, but we will need to get actual samples to determine that. We should have our samples in about two weeks and we will have the photos posted shortly after that.

So for a while we will have two Iwako Bird Japanese eraser sets, with the difference that Series One will contain the discontinued bird Japanese eraser colors and Series Two will have the two new colors.

For Easter, Sonny Angel is doing a Chocolate series. Bitter Chocolate, Extra Bitter Chocolate and White Chocolate Sonny Rabbits. One the bottom row, Elephant Milk Chocolate Sonny Angel, Cock White Chocolate Sonny Angel and Koala Strawberry Chocolate Sonny Angel.
Each of the figures come a golden egg in a package tied off with a brown ribbon.
Hopefully, we will see them before April 8, but with Japanese product, ship dates are never certain. We do not need to tell you about the Christmas Domos that arrived in June of the next year.

It turns out that the new Kawaii animal erasers could have 168 different color versions.

The math works like this.  Four different Kawaii animal erasers. The pig eraser, rabbit eraser, squirrel eraser and the cat eraser.

Seven different Kawaii animal eraser colors. Red, brown, yellow, white, pink, green and grey.

Six different Kawaii animal belly eraser colors. Red, pink, white, green, yellow and brown.

Multiply all these together and you come up with 168 color possibilities.

As of this writing, we have 79 of the 168 Kawaii eraser versions up on sausalitoferry.com. We will be adding more as we get more inventory.

Perhaps a little late to arrive, or maybe not, we finally have John Hersey's follow up to his Dia De Los Gigantes t shirt, the Dia De Los 49ers t shirt.

One would think that making a Hello Kitty pencil with a eraser on the top would be pretty straight forward. Looks can be deceiving.

Let's start at the beginning. Sanrio is the owner of Hello Kitty. Of all the quadzillion things Hello Kitty, Sanrio only makes a handful Hello Kitty items themselves. Other companies make the rest. They are given permission by Sanrio to make these Hello Kitty goodies and then sell them to us retailers.

Sanrio has it's own specialty line of what is pretty much the classic Hello Kitty line of merchandise. It sells this line all over the world, but for the most part it is only found in the Sanrio stores and speciality stores. It is not found in the big box or mass market stores, but those store have their own version of Hello Kitty, but it is pretty generic. (Generic means boring).

At our sister store, Games People Play, we carry the classic Sanrio. We first picked it up in 1973, and Games People Play may be the oldest continuing retailer of Sanrio and Hello Kitty in the United States.

Back to the Hello Kitty Pencils on the left.  Sanrio decides that it wants, as part of it's speciality line, some Hello Kitty pencils with erasers. Being very familiar with most of the quality pencil manufacturers, they decide on BeGoody.

You may know BeGoody from the pencils with erasers from sausalitoferry.com. Sanrio says to BeGoody we want this sort of artwork on the body of the pencil and we want on some of the pencils Hello Kitty erasers and on the other pencils, let's use the apple eraser which is part of the Hello Kitty KT line. (KT stands for "kitty terrestrial". Don't ask).

BeGoody then goes to Dream Zensinsyoji, the other maker of Japanese erasers which you also may be familiar with from sausalitoferry.com. Dream Zensinsyoji makes the erasers, sends them to BeGoody which then assembles the complete Hello Kitty pencil and sends them to Sanrio, We, Games People Play, buy them not from Sanrio, but from a company known as Nakajima, the US distributor of Sanrio in the US.

Nakajima also makes most of the Hello Kitty plush for Sanrio.

If you are still reading this by now, we are sure you have a headache. Go cuddle your stuffed Hello Kitty.

Cheer him up by surrounding him with his five monkey Japanese eraser friends.

From Iwako, we will see Series Two Monkey Japanese erasers in March. These animal Japanese erasers are done in soft pastel colors that makes them look way too yummy.