--- title: This Friendly Mascot Went Wild With an Impressive Drum Show description: The Japanese character of Nyango Star is a force to be reckoned with in its onstage drumming performances, which have now gone viral. canonical: https://time.com/5416807/drumming-mascot/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-10-05T15:53:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:55:18.797Z og:title: This Friendly Mascot Went Wild With an Impressive Drum Show og:description: The Japanese character of Nyango Star has made its mark on the internet og:url: https://time.com/5416807/drumming-mascot/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Friendly Mascot Went Wild With an Impressive Drum Show twitter:description: The Japanese character of Nyango Star has made its mark on the internet twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Everyone's Obsessed With This Friendly Mascot's Drumming Skills > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=4dd97cc0-b246-4f8a-916a-5b037d50f072&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Oct 5, 2018 3:53 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Oct 5, 2018 3:53 PM UTC Whoever says a [friendly plush mascot](http://time.com/5405221/gritty-mascot/) can’t go hardcore on the drums would be wrong. Certainly not musician and viral star Nyango Star, a Japanese performance artist and character who has become an internet sensation thanks to its no-holds-barred approach to his craft — all while dressed in a giant mascot costume of a character that’s a mix between a giant pink cat and an apple. Nyango Star has been around for a while in Japan; videos [show it rocking out](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKFqb-yBUJ-sqUEO7Wbd4Yw) to heavy metal as far back as three years ago. And it’s apparently a regular public performer, even [collaborating with](https://www.irishnews.com/magazine/2017/03/05/news/meet-nyango-star-the-japanese-children-s-character-who-plays-heavy-metal-drums-953610/) non-costumed bands in the past. But it’s a random performance onstage in what appears to be a children’s show of some kind that has gone viral on Twitter this week, after it was resurfaced by music publicist Eric Alper. “When you’re overqualified for the job,” he joked about the video, which shows Nyango Star going positively ham on the drums about a minute in. Commenters have clarified that the song at hand is the theme tune from the Japanese children’s show _Anpanman_, but a brief perusal of Nyango Star’s body of work shows the artist is an expert at everything from Slipknot to other metal music, and has [gone viral before.](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nyango-star) The character of Nyango Star has something of a tragic backstory; according to [a biographical website](http://nyangostar.jp/profile/), the creature was born after a cat was buried in an apple orchard and was reincarnated as an apple. It must make it to Hollywood in order to regain its cat form — thus Nyango Star’s intent on becoming a famous musician. Naturally. Check out the impressive drumming mascot below. Maybe [Gritty](http://time.com/5405221/gritty-mascot/) could learn a lesson or two from Nyango Star. > [](https://twitter.com/ThatEricAlper/status/1047286804645199872) > [](https://twitter.com/BeardedGenius/status/1048213131359649792) > [](https://twitter.com/OneAndOnlyReTox/status/1047293631009181696) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5416807/drumming-mascot/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5416807/drumming-mascot/"},"headline":"Everyone's Obsessed With This Friendly Mascot's Drumming Skills","datePublished":"2018-10-05T15:53:41.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:55:18.797Z","description":"Watch out, Gritty","url":"https://time.com/5416807/drumming-mascot/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Music","viral"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5416807/drumming-mascot/","name":"Everyone's Obsessed With This Friendly Mascot's Drumming Skills"}}]}] ```