Article
In an effort to improve the accessibility of information regarding 100catsworld, as well as add in new, additional info, and because I added the origin itself to MFC a bit ago, I've decided to write a new, comprehensive article going over this obscure Sanrio lost media project.
Quick Questions
What is 100catsworld? - A product line from 1999, by Sanrio Nijihan, a branch(?) of Sanrio for which very little information exists. It was produced by Kunihiko Tsuji and features 100 individual cat designs, all drawn by different artists. They made typical Sanrio products: stationery, plushies, keychains, room decor, etc.
Why is it lost? - In my searching, I found that the trademark for 100catsworld was filed August 10th, 1999. Its status was officially changed to Dead/Abandoned on May 24th, 2001. That means that this trademark was only active for 1 year, 9 months, 14 days. It barely existed.
Research Note (June 2026): Trademark was revised, and 100catsworld had its name changed.
Very little information about this product line exists, likely due to its short lifespan and seeming lack of any advertisement. Perhaps it was always intended to be a limited release, or perhaps one or many of the 100 artists involved were experiencing issues? Even big Sanrio fans, those who run websites such as the Hello Kitty Wiki, have either very barebones entries for 100catsworld or none at all. I myself found it completely at random while browsing the website Everything2, where not even the entry there has correct or updated information. But my curiosity was piqued.
Initially, I was drawn to this product line due to being both a fan of cats, lol, and a fan of concepts which feature large casts. The idea of 100 different artists all designing their own cat is fun and cute, and I feel it has a nostalgic charm to it. Originally I wanted to have full designs, artists, and names for each cat, but this has proved far more difficult than expected to achieve.
We can place names to exactly three cats.
Known Cats
Francesca is the main character of this collection, a white cat with a ribbon around her neck and a thin tail. As far as I can tell, none of the 100catsworld cats have personalities or stories attached.
While searching just now I actually found a fair amount of high-res art pieces of her? They're all Shopee links so I can't gather more information, but I don't know if any place anywhere would bother bootlegging something so obscure... though they also look quite modern, which would mean they've renewed the copyright? Mysterious.
Unfortunately even with these three, we cannot credit an artist with their design, and only Francesca has possibly-official high-quality artwork. Thank you to LWight on Picmix for the Picmix stickers though!
The names of Eepin and Nyamar were found in a 100catsworld merchandise catalogue; scanned by and thanks to user bakeneko. If more of these exist, they are likely to have more names; however, 100catsworld merchandise can be expensive these days. Is it worth it?! Might have to do it for science.
Unidentified Cats
Other art we have of cats, though we cannot place a name to them:
Call for Information
If you own any 100catsworld merchandise, or really have any information, or even if you're interested in helping clean up some artwork, feel free to message me here or on Discord, meidomai. I plan to create a 100catsworld art archival website shortly,
Research Note (June 2026): Lol.
and will likely start working on it after this article. I'll link this on my profile once I have it in a showable state. Thank you for reading!