But, as Grundhauser writes, “If only they had finished the series first.” Soon, the Japanese were importing around 1,500 critters a month. The kids loved Rascal so much that they wanted raccoons to take on their own adventures. Audiences ate the warm and fuzzy story right up, and Disney even made it a live-action movie in 1969.īut the book would reach a new height of fame when the story migrated to Japan, where the Nippon Animation Company turned it into a 52-episode cartoon series to the delight of the nation’s children. As Eric Grundhauser over at Atlas Obscura explains, the book, entitled Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era, was released to western audiences in 1963 and told the story of North’s adventures with his childhood pet raccoon. He was cute and mischievous and the star of an anime series adaptation of a favorite children’s book, written by American author Sterling North.
But their invasion started back in 1977, when the kids of Japan were going crazy for a cartoon raccoon named Rascal. Today, raccoons are a nuisance animal in Japan, rummaging through trash, stealing goods from vendors, feasting on crops and even damaging ancient Japanese temples with their sharp claws and abundant poop.
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