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Comment by gyomu

13 hours ago

And the anime was so popular it led to raccoons being imported en masse to Japan and becoming an invasive species when their owners released them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rascal_the_Raccoon#Impact

I learned about this 2 years ago when a racoon showed up in Tokyo close to where I lived. [1]

wild to think they spread even all the way to Japan because of anime. and probably south Korea now. They banned raccoons in Japan but it seems to not have caught up in SK and there are a lot of racoon pet videos from SK on YouTube)

[1] https://youtu.be/P2yDY5HlUBw?si=YP_Bkd_oQZ86YOHt

  • There use to be "Raccoon cafes" in Seoul. You go buy a drink and pet the raccoons. IIRC animal cafes were banned around 2019 or so.